The Pin and the Casket
by InkWorthy
Summary: A box, a column, and a pin are game pieces, and a small handful of humans are the players. As a beautiful woman starts to set the stage for her brutal reclaiming of the bizarre Labyrinth dimension, people find themselves drawn into the clutches of the Lament Configuration - or drawn back. (Amalgam retelling of 3 & 4 with a bit of 2, canon-divergent. Pinsty.)
1. Chapter 1

_Quick prelude: I was without Microsoft for like a week because my subscription ran out and I couldn't fix it immediately, but luckily it's renewed and we're good to go. I promise I'm working on Chapter 5 of Reconstructed, but that's very quickly looking to be a much bigger project than I anticipated. I want to do another multi-chapter thing that's still a bit more contained, so that's what this is. I'm taking a similar approach to this as I am with Reconstructed, but only in that I'm combining movies - the end of 2 (which I've deviated a bit from), the premise of 3, and the setting of 4, and the casts of all of them. I hope you enjoy it._

 _Wow, that prelude was not quick at all._

 _Please let me know what you think, and as always, happy reading! - Inky_

* * *

Kirsty woke up with tears in her eyes to the sound of her cell phone ringing right next to her ear. She blinked, and found enough focus to reach for the phone and look at the screen.

Dr. Channard's Office. She threw her phone at the foot of her bed, and it bounced once before settling, still buzzing and playing that ringtone she was starting to hate.

Kirsty swallowed and wiped her eyes. She was in a hotel room, she remembered as the dream started to fade, and she was on the bed.

One of the beds.

She looked to her left. Tiffany was wrapped up tight in her own blankets, sleeping like the phone had never started ringing. Kirsty couldn't imagine how she was able to relax after everything, even a week later, but Tiffany had been sleeping soundly every night since they'd left that miserable place. She was the only one, though.

Kirsty heard movement, the creaking of springs and looked ahead at the sofa. She could barely see in the dark, but the woman's voice was clear, if quiet.

"Are you alright?" Joey got out of her sheets before Kirsty could formulate an answer. Her hair was tied up in a messy bun, and in the shadows her head looked like a small, oddly-placed snowman. Kirsty didn't know why that thought helped, but it did.

"Phone," she finally answered weakly, and pointed to the dejected piece of metal. Joey walked over and picked it up, handing it back to Kirsty, who placed it back on the side table. The clock's red numbers burned angrily in the dark: 5:30 AM. The curtains were shut, but there was no light bleeding out from them.

"You should probably block them," Joey said, and for a second it looked like she might push some hair from Kirsty's face. "They're probably not going to stop." Kirsty leaned away by trying to lie back in bed; nobody had touched her hair since her father's passing, with the exception she did not want to think about. She didn't like the idea of other people touching her hair. She saw Joey's hand lower by her side.

"Yeah," Kirsty answered, and glanced at her pillow. Rough, itchy, but at least it wasn't the hospital's. Never again. "I will."

She hugged it, and the back of her wrist brushed against something metal.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Joey wasn't her mom, or her friend, but Kirsty did feel less alone with her and Tiffany, and that was something, at least. She looked back up at the reporter, and half-smiled in the dark.

"Yeah, I am," she said, "gonna try and get some more sleep." Joey nodded, seemingly assured, and left. Kirsty's hand searched under the pillow, and found the thing she was looking for.

She closed her eyes again, and tried to relax, squeezing the length of the cold pin in her tired hand.

* * *

Terri only owned the Boiler Room because nobody else wanted it after J. P. disappeared. That was what she told herself when they handed the rights to her, saying they were in her name in his will that had clearly been made as a joke when it was read aloud. J. P. Monroe was supposed to live forever, but he'd been found missing from his bedroom with the walls covered in enough blood that the experts were convinced he was dead without ever seeing a body.

Of course Terri was upset, but there was something about having _stuff_ that distracted her. It was like his last attempt to mock her had folded in on itself; her lawyer had helped her understand the inheritance laws and what she could do with the stuff she had, including selling it.

So she was selling it. An auction of all his stuff – and people _wanted_ it, which was crazy – that lasted for four days so far, this being the fifth. The only room untouched was his bedroom, because nobody wanted to go _in_ there, except to retrieve one weird, ugly thing.

The column of concrete was kind of horrible, which was probably why J. P. had liked it. It was covered in writhing figures and depictions of what was either really kinky sex or uncomfortably sexual torture. And a face, covered in pins, asleep.

The sculptor _had_ to have been a freak, Terri thought, because without the pins the face would probably have been a bit hot. Which was weird.

The sculpture was the one thing nobody wanted to buy. She hadn't made a fortune off his stuff, but she'd made enough to afford an apartment's rent for a while, so she wasn't all that torn up about it. As she stood around the empty building and stared at the thing on a Friday evening, the door swung open.

The woman was the prettiest Terri had ever seen. Her eyes were dark, her lips red, her hair in curls pinned to the top of her head with something jeweled. Terri – who wasn't even going to pretend she'd never _looked_ at a girl, because that's why she didn't have a place of her own or with her parents to start with – could not look away. She even put out her cigarette and tossed it in the garbage.

The woman's heels clicked against concrete, and she walked towards the column with a soldier's purpose. She looked at it, staring intently with those dark, pretty eyes, and Terri could not stop looking at _her_ looking at the sculpture. She pursed her lips and looked down at her pocketbook, and Terri barely noticed it clicking open because she was distracted by those velvet-gloved hands.

And then those velvet-gloved hands were putting a wad of bills into her hand. Bills in hundreds.

"No need for change," the woman said in a voice like red wine, and Terri looked up at her and nodded, dumbfounded. She looked down at the wad of bills – and Terri knew how to spot a real bill – and marveled that they _were._

"Oh my god, thank you," she started to say as she looked up. But the woman and the statue, just like that, were gone.

* * *

"Tiffany," Kirsty signed, "I'm going with Joey to the opening of the Merchant Art Museum. We'll be gone for about an hour and a half. Will you be alright?"

"I will," Tiffany responded, a smile on her face, "I'll text if I need anything, but I'm probably going to get some reading done." She had taken to sign language almost effortlessly. Seven years later Kirsty still struggled at times to keep up, but she couldn't help but feel a little bit of joy every time Tiffany's face lit up while talking about something. Speech therapy was something they'd discussed, but for now Tiffany was happy and communicating and that was all either could ask for. "That book Joey bought about the skeleton and the murdered uncle is really good so far. I want to finish it today if I can."

"Great!" Kirsty always spoke and signed at the same time, mostly because she still made mistakes and if she was lucky, Tiffany or Joey would catch her. "I'll be checking my phone. If you need anything at all, you know what to do." Tiffany nodded and smiled, and held her arms out. Kirsty grinned and hugged her. "Alright, I have to go. Remember to text me!"

"I will!" Tiffany followed her to the door and waved her off as Kirsty walked out. Kirsty glanced back in time to see the apartment door shut, and the click of the lock. Assured, she made her way out of the building and onto the curb, just in time to catch a taxi to the office.

If they could beat traffic, she thought as she started doing math and thumbing bills ahead of time, she would get there just in time for a cup of coffee before they headed to the opening.


	2. Chapter 2

The one unspoken rule of the office was that you didn't say anything unkind to Joey's sisters if you wanted to live.

This was an antiquated rule; Kirsty did good work as a writer for the station, and Tiffany was one of the best when it came to finding hidden information quickly, online or looking at evidence. The three were a force to be reckoned with; Doc had deemed them "the Hoaxbusters", and it seemed to stick. They were a respected trio in the little local news station, and for the most part, they were happy.

Kirsty ran into the building with her purse under one arm and a tray of coffees in the other. The strap had snapped on her old bag, but she couldn't replace it, so she marched up the stairs with her bag clutched to her side like a lifeline. She turned the corner and swung through the doors with her shoulder.

"I made it!" She said, a little breathless. Joey looked up from behind her reading glasses.

"… Kirsty, did you rush here?"

"… yeah?" Wedges were only marginally easier to run in than heels, and she was still catching her breath. "Was I not supposed to…?"

"I mean, I'm glad you're here," Joey got up and took the coffees, setting them on the desk, "but we're not leaving for another half-hour."

"… oh." Kirsty let herself laugh, just a little bit, and adjusted her purse in her arm. "More time for me to fix this, I guess."

"I guess." Joey smiled and shook her head. "Is Tiffany alright?"

"Yeah, she's going to text me if she needs anything," Kirsty nodded. Joey handed her the right coffee, and she sipped before continuing. "She's excited about finishing that book."

"Good, she deserves to enjoy her day off," Joey said, drinking her own. Milk and two sugars - Kirsty never got her other wrong. "Why don't you go catch your breath and relax a bit before we go? I'm just doing one last check on everything we need."

"Alright." Kirsty smiled at her sister, and made her way to her office.

Kirsty's desk was always almost perfectly clean. There was usually something out of place - today it was the leftover papers from yesterday's work, which had never quite made it to the trash. Kirsty dropped her purse over them and turned her attention to the strap. It had broken right where it connected to the metal loop on one side - a cheap but easy fix. Kirsty tied the torn strap through the metal ring and tugged it. It held.

That saved her a trip to the store.

Kirsty sat down and looked to the side of her desk. A small wooden casket the size of a matchbox sat in its own corner, etched with her father's initials and the words "In Memory".

He'd never gotten a proper funeral. It was the best she could do when he wasn't legally dead. She felt terrible that she could only find one at a craft store, but she'd etched and varnished it and for what it was, it was enough. Kirsty ran her fingertips over it and sighed. She missed her father. She hoped he'd be proud of her now.

Part of her hoped _he_ was, too.

"Shit." She opened her purse and rummaged through it, finding the orange bottle among her other belongings. She held it up to the light and frowned.

One pill left. She'd completely forgotten to get her Hypnocil prescription refilled; she'd have to do it tomorrow, or on her way home if Tiffany didn't mind ordering dinner online. She felt lousy; it was Tiffany's day off, and dealing with the delivery guy was always a chore.

"I can wait one more night." She had a pill left; enough to last until she refilled it tomorrow. She was trying to wean herself anyway, wasn't she?

"You ready?" Kirsty looked up at Joey, who looked ready to go. "We might as well try to beat the lines."

"Oh, yeah," Kirsty said, and got up, shoving the bottle back in her purse as she did. "Maybe we can get some words with one of the staff."

"That's what I'm thinking." Joey dropped her empty coffee cup in the trash and smiled. "Let's get going."

* * *

It wasn't there.

The box wasn't there. She stared at the column, lips pursed, and for a moment she seemed calm.

Then she gave a frustrated shout that rocked the entire basement of the museum.

The column was useless to her without the box. Whatever resided within it could awaken, certainly, but it was no replacement for a gate to the Labyrinth. She glared daggers at the sleeping face etched in the stone, gridded and marked with pins driven all the way into the skull; it was handsome, certainly, and no doubt a sarcophagus such as this would exist only for one of Leviathan's favored.

No, not a sarcophagus. This was no coffin; it was an incubator. She had been gone long, but she remembered some of the stranger toys of her old realm, and this one…

Perhaps it could be of some use to her after all.

"Is everything okay down there?" The woman's gaze shot up the stairs. She'd had her chosen "lover" wait while she claimed the box, and for a moment she considered sending him away.

But she knew how this toy worked. Time to play, it seemed.

"Yes," she said in that rich voice her victim had given her centuries ago, "I'm alright. Please, come down." She watched the portly man stumble down, and barely suppressed her look of disinterest as he walked over, sweat clinging to his forehead. She could taste his desires in the air around him; bland and uninspired, the papery fantasies of a man who never risked more than he could afford to lose.

The Labyrinth's purpose was to teach, yes? Perhaps he would be grateful for the lesson.

"Could you take a look at this?" She asked, turning back to the pillar. He followed her gaze and grimaced, but covered it, obviously trying to impress the pretty lady before him.

"What about it?" He asked, taking a step closer. "It's an ugly looking thing, isn't it?" She could hear the faint hum from beneath the stone; it was stirring.

"There's something with the man's face," she said, "I thought it moved. It is stone, is it not?" Fake innocence was all he needed to take another step. She pushed him and the man collided with the stone, and then chains collided with _him._

She watched in passive fascination as her pawn was torn asunder. His skin pulled away and he screamed, and the chains dragged him into the stone, now open like a gaping maw. He writhed and shrieked, looking at her with fear in his reddening eyes, and she could not resist blowing him a kiss.

And then he was gone and the column was closed again. Another hum from deep within it stirred the floor beneath her. she watched.

The pins in the gridded man's head slowly pushed out, until they all stood out about an inch from the face. It was only now that she noticed a detail she'd missed before - the one at the center of his forehead was missing. The stone eyes opened, and a voice like the very essence of the Labyrinth, deep and compelling, spoke.

"Angelique."


	3. Chapter 3

_I'm riding this motivation train until it runs out of steam, no matter how much I need to fight autocorrect to do it. Who knows how long I'll be able to keep this streak up._

 _Also, quick shout-out to L. J. Heywood for the support and constructive commentary. Your remark on my latest one-shot actually sparked my motivation to finish this chapter: you mentioned wanting to see Unbound Pinhead and Kirsty in action, and that was actually the idea behind this fic! Not as much in this chapter, but rest assured that it's coming. ;D_

 _Be kind and stay spooky, everyone._

 _-Inky_

* * *

"Kirsty Summerskill, you are a wonder woman."

Kirsty smiled; she'd talked the guard into letting them in a full half-hour early, only slightly relying on her pink-lipped grin and the flutter of her dark lashes. Joey had taught her the tenets of being persuasive, but Kirsty was a natural and surpassed her adopted sister effortlessly.

Now she and Joey were walking to the artist's main office, through the back; outside the two could hear the clamor and chatter of art enthusiasts at the museum's entrance.

"So run by me one more time what this guy's famous for?" Kirsty asked, looking around. It was all architecture, but something about it sat uneasy with her. Something about the gilded gold, silver, and black; something in her stirred from the dark corner where it'd slept tucked away. _Get out,_ the restless impulse whispered in her ear, _get away!_

"It's modern buildings, mostly," Joey said, looking around herself, "but apparently he comes from this long line of creative types." She seemed more relaxed, even in her professional poise, and it helped put Kirsty at ease. Joey just had that way about her; she always seemed to have a plan, or just know what to do. Kirsty hopes she could be that confident one day.

In the meantime, she was fighting the impulse to reach for her sister's hand as they advanced towards the office. She felt like their were eyes hidden in the designs, all gazing at her.

Finally they approached a glass door, and Joey knocked on the metal frame. The man inside looked up; Kirsty glanced at his name on the door, John Merchant in polite silver letters.

* * *

"Two more is all you'll need, then?" The Prince resisted the impulse to sigh; Angelique was looking at him with a skeptical pout, and he found himself distinctly unimpressed with the Princess he had succeeded. He had heard such stories of her machinations, but it appeared the Earth had softened her touch, simplified her means.

Seduction, pah. He could seduce someone if he wanted. So could anyone with the aims and know-how, and some even without.

"Leviathan's Power is stronger since your time, Princess," he spoke, "two souls is more than enough to restore my true form. Then we can proceed." He would admit her plan had potential; while her potential may have grown dull, her mind had not, and if this truly was where the LeMarchand descendant could be found, then they could begin tearing the veil between worlds in no time at all.

Oh, the freedom from his previous restraints was exquisite. Why he had spent so long keeping his ambition in check was beyond his comprehension.

"Ah, a child of Leviathan," Angelique said, "I suppose the Labyrinth has not replaced me as its favorite, then." She stepped forward, red nails tracing over his pinned and stony cheek. "So tell me, Son of Leviathan, shall we find the two lucky souls to bring the beginning?" The prince smiled, despite that she was touching him without permission.

"As you wish, Princess."

* * *

John Merchant was a man who clearly did not sleep. Kirsty could relate; she was already on her second espresso from his personal coffee machine, and she would felt guilty if he wasn't on his third since the interview started. He seemed happy to talk to them after they explained who they were; and thank goodness, because they didn't have a backup story if they'd gotten kicked out.

"Just one more question," Kirsty said as she scratched away at her notebook with her fountain pen that made her feel important, "What influenced the designs for this particular exhibit? They're quite distinct from your usual work." Which she only knew because she'd looked up some of his designs while pretending to text the camera crew outside. John Merchant smiled, half asleep and half proud.

"They're passed down through my family," he said, shuffling through some papers. "They were actually created by my great-something grandfather, Phillip LeMerchand, when he designed a toy. I've been trying to track it down for years; it's a one-of-a-kind puzzle box."

"What?" Kirsty whispered, and the lights went out.


	4. Chapter 4

I _just want to clarify I've been stuck on airplanes and layovers for almost 24 hours now, and I'm not just binge-writing fic at the expense of my sleep schedule. That being said, this has proven to be wonderful for my motivation regarding my WIPs._

 _That being said, considering I'm writing all of this on my phone and have been for the past week: ow, my thumb._

 _Here's hoping I can keep this going after I get my laptop back. Just a few more hours!_

 _Be kind and stay spooky, everyone._

 _-Inky_

* * *

"That is not what I would have done." The Prince was amused, but kept his tone droll lest he let Angelique think she impressed him. She just smiled, pulling her claws from the panel in the wall. It sparked and smoked, and she let her hand shrink back to a woman's, checking her nails.

"Are you disappointed you couldn't do it first?" Already the din of mob paniccould be heard overhead; with any luck a whole trove of security guards would come down.

"Hardly." She rolled her eyes and smiled; he frowned, but it faded quickly. How he aches to be free from this prison; then he would give her reason to discard her smirk. "How do you intend to lure more than one officer close enough for me to harvest them?"

"I'm sure I'll think of something in time," she said, unbuttoning her jacket and setting it aside. "Humans do love a damsel in distress. I'm the meantime, why don't you tell me why you're missing a pin?"

She looked back at him, and this time he couldn't hold back the look on his face. "What?"

"What?" Angelique replied, innocent.

"What do you mean I'm _missing a pin?"_

Before she could answer, there were footsteps at the top of the stairs.

"Ah," she said with a scarlet grin, "we're close to halfway done."

* * *

John was quick to get Kirsty and Joey out of the building; within minutes of the outage there was an uproar outside, and securit was trying to assuage the frustrated crowd that everything would be taken care of and the exhibit would carry on after just a short delay.

Kirsty did not process any of it; she was gripping her notebook and shaking, blindly letting Joey lead her wherever. All it had taken was those two words - puzzle box - and for the darkness to descend and she was coming apart.

She could feel her uncle's visceral hand on her cheek, hear the Doctor announce his presence with words and wires.

She could see him, choking red from a single wound. Her fingers rubbed together, seeking a comfort that wasn't there.

Joey was trying to navigate Kirsty away from the crowd; her sister was shaking and it had started raining and the van had dropped them off for what was expected to be at least another two hours. Joey drew in a breath, looking at the sky as she rubbed her sister's back in the middle of the museum parking lot.

"Hey." She looked up and saw a woman, short black hair and short black clothes, holding an extinguished cigarette. "You need help there?"

"Yes," Joey said in relief, "my sister, she's-"

"Panic attack," the woman said, "I see them sometimes. I don't have a lot of gas, but I can get you somewhere quiet for her. That work?"

"Yes, thank you so much." Joey hugged her sister's shoulders and Kirsty let out a shaking breath. "I'm Joey Summerskill."

"Think I saw you on TV once," the woman said as she opened the door, and Joey coaxed Kirsty in with another rub on her shoulder and a murmur she'd be okay: "Terri. You looked hotter in the red skirt, by the way. I'll get her a bottle of water."

* * *

He could sense her. She was disappearing, but he could sense her; fire, tenacity, a delicious longing that he ached to expose and exploit.

The prince had never forgotten her in his slumber; even as his column consumed the blood and flesh of the unfortunate bodyguard who'd wandered down his senses were trained on her.

"Feeling better?" Angelique asked, and he ignored her for the moment to focus on the fading traces of Kirsty. She was older, he could taste that, but little else; he would have to wait to see her in person.

Oh, the thought was tantalizing; phantom hands twitched with need to grasp her, to pull her close and… we'll, the possibilities were endless, weren't they?

He just needed to get out of this prison, and work out where his pin had gone. He remembered a black and white photo, and a false Cenobite, and then…?

"Pinhead." He scowled at Angelique as his thoughts scattered.

"That is _not_ my name."

"Forgive me, your highness," she said in a voice he knew meant she wasn't sorry at all, "but I needed your attention. Nobody else is coming down. Shall I try and retrieve the LeMerchand?"

"Let us wait," he responded, slowly returning to his deeper mindscape. "The guard had companions. Let us find them to keep him company first."

* * *

 _OW, my thumb. I'm calling it until I get my computer back._


	5. Chapter 5

_I almost attempted this at 3 in the morning to celebrate getting my laptop back, but I am so glad I didn't. Sleep-deprived me is not somebody who has any business trying to write._

 _I will admit I might stick to the slightly shorter chapters for the time being, but only because it seems to be helping me actually get things written without having to worry about meeting my usual word count. So here's to what hopefully will be slightly more consistency in my posting schedule! Even though I really just wanna post all the cool parts and deal with the rest of the plot afterward. :P_

 _As always, be kind and stay spooky, everyone._

 _-Inky_

* * *

The world returned to Kirsty slowly as the sensory overload of her memories faded, leaving a soothing quiet in its wake. She came to realize she had a white-knuckle grip on a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and that Joey was gently rubbing her back. She blinked, small tears falling down her cheeks. Kirsty turned to look at her sister, and Joey smiled at her from behind her glasses.

"Hey," Joey said with her comfort voice, soft and encouraging. Kirsty couldn't remember the last time she heard it - was it when Joey had first brought her home from the Institute? "I got you a bottle of water, you need any?" Kirsty shook her head; her hands were shaking as they grasped her protective layer, and she was beginning to realize she didn't know where she was. What was this place? It was black and bare, like it had been stripped from the inside out, and the only things filling the space were benches and a stage covered in debris.

"Joey," she managed, "where are we?"

There was a knocking sound, and Kirsty's head whipped to the side to follow it. The woman leaning against the wall was chewing on a lollipop stick, but didn't seem to have any actual candy left. Kirsty vaguely recognized her, along with a memory of a car.

"You're... Terri," she managed, and Terri nodded before tossing the lollipop stick into a nearby garbage can. It hit the metal with a heavy echo.

"Welcome back," she said, walking over and sitting down some distance from Kirsty on the bench. "We're in an old nightclub. It used to be The Boiler Room, don't know what it's gonna be next."

"The Boiler Room..." Kirsty repeated, finally easing her grip on the blanket somewhat. "I think I did a travel piece on this spot once. The owner wasn't too happy..." It took her a second before she realized the implications, especially since she could remember a particular remark she'd made that had gotten her an angry and poorly-spelled email. "I'm sorry, I..."

Terri laughed, and Kirsty felt Joey rubbing her shoulder again. "No, I remember that, you were right. This place was garbage, just like the guy who owned it." Kirsty smiled a bit in relief, shaking her head again - though this time it was in amusement. The guy in question, J. P. Monroe, had been quite the piece of work. "You feeling any better? You could barely talk at first."

"I think so, yeah," Kirsty said, finally managing to sit up from how she'd been hunched over, drawing in a deep breath of air. It was stale and smelled of old alcohol and the musk of sex, but her lungs were grateful for it after what must have been bouts of holding it in.

"Kirsty, what happened back there?" She turned back to Joey, whose expression had turned to one of worry. "The last thing that happened was the lights went out and you started panicking. You almost crushed your notebook." She handed Kirsty the spiral-bound book, now wrinkled with distinct finger-grips. "Are you afraid of the dark...?"

"No," Kirsty said with a swallow, "Just what's in it. This might take a bit to explain."

"We've got time," Terri said, leaning against the wall, "I don't have anywhere to be." Kirsty looked to her sister, who nodded in turn.

"Okay," she said, "but it's going to sound absolutely insane. My uncle was obsessed with this puzzle box..."

* * *

He had miscalculated, it seemed.

Initially the Prince had taken J.P. Monroe's soul to be too weak. It had been rich in sin but poor in constitution, a spirit prone to bending to whatever whim claimed it, and thus his flesh was steeped in indulgence and weakened by its consumption of vices. But now as the first guard's blood filled the column which cracked and chipped away it seemed he was mistaken - with Angelique's first victim and the guard who'd tried to protect her from the _big scary box,_ he could feel his strength returning, his constraints crumbling away.

Three was enough after all.

The column fell apart with a burst, and from the rubble stepped a tall, imposing figure. The prince smiled, relishing the return of movement to his limbs, his fingertips already itching to tear and reshape flesh. There was nothing to hold him back now - in fact, he thought as he looked around the warehouse, why wait to start?

He held his hands aloft, willing the discarded pieces of architecture to rearrange themselves into something more suited to his tastes. He would reshape his current space into a dwelling worthy of Leviathan's favorite, something less lackluster than this paltry scene.

Exactly one shelf moved to the left.

The prince stared; he lowered his hands and focused on the old shelf, willing all his attention on it. It slid faster and started to bend, to shape as he envisioned, but it was frustratingly slow in its transformation. He sank his chains into it, but even that did not feel correct. Idly his hand drifted to the empty spot where two scars met at the center of his brow, feeling the absence of his pin.

 _Kirsty was afraid. Kirsty was afraid but kept herself between the doctor and Tiffany, and he'd needed to do something._

 _"Run!" Kirsty said, and Tiffany did. She looked back to the doctor. The prince stepped forward, put his hand on her shoulder, and..._

 _Nothing._

What was missing? He remembered confronting the doctor, and his loss, but there was a gap, a vague space in his memory. What had he done, and how had it cost him his pin? Even without his overbearing inhibitions he was constrained; to deny Leviathan's gifts was to deny his power, and by missing a pin he was considerably weaker.

There was a sound of footsteps, heels against cement, and he locked the thought away. For now he would keep his disadvantage from the Princess; there were more important and immediate things to attend to.

* * *

Tiffany was so proud of herself- not only had she finished her book, she'd gotten halfway through the second one in the series! She set the novel down with its bookmark in place, content with her progress, and flipped open her computer. She'd already set out her agenda for the day; after reading was a movie and lunch, and then maybe she'd head out for some light shopping before ordering dinner for the three of them. Tiffany started scrolling through her playlist - she had a number of things she'd been meaning to watch, and she didn't have to worry about sharing the TV - when a ringing made her jump.

It took her a second to register the source - a video call on her screen, patiently asking her to pick up. She didn't recognize the number, and stranger still it seemed to change every time she blinked. _I'll wait it out,_ she thought, _then listen to the voicemail._

It didn't stop ringing.

Tiffany sat there, staring uncomfortably at the screen as it buzzed, and she couldn't click away from it. The window just stayed open, waiting for her. Steeling herself and deciding that she could always just hang up, she answered.

For a second the video screen was dark. "Is this Tiffany?" A man's voice asked - calm, but with a polite urgency that made her nod. "You look well. I can see you - I'm sorry, but I'm not very good with this sort of communication. My image should be coming in soon." And indeed it was - slowly the shape of a man was forming, vague and composed of undefined colors and shadows. "Listen to me very carefully - you need to reach out to your sisters and find out if they're safe. The museum they were investigating is in very real and immediate trouble. There is a chance to stop it, and I want to help, but it will require the three of you."

He was somewhat easier to see now, and she could make out a beige uniform of sorts. For a second Tiffany felt skepticism, a deep discomfort that made her start to reach forward and shut the laptop.

"Tiffany, please listen to me," he said gently, "it involves the puzzle box." Immediately she pushed the screen back up, and saw the grim expression on the face staring at her; one she'd only seen twice before, and once in an old photo, but it was a face she knew immediately.

In spite of herself, she mouthed a name. He nodded.

"The box is at risk of being open permanently, and I believe the four of us have the means to stop it. I'll explain when you get to them. find them, Tiffany, and be safe. You can message me on your phone." He nodded one more time. "There's no time to lose."

The screen went black, and Tiffany shut the laptop before shoving it in her back. She grabbed a flashlight, a mace can Kirsty had bought her, and a cross she kept hanging on her bedroom door; it had been her mother's, and while she wasn't one for religion for personal reasons it brought her a deep comfort she knew she'd need. Tiffany looked at her phone and opened her messages; already the name Elliot Spencer was waiting for her.

 _I'm on my way,_ she typed, and ran out as she started texting Joey.

* * *

 _Wow, that was longer than expected. Hooray...?_

 _One more note I feel is important - I consider the comics a separate continuity from the films, so I won't be using anything from them in most of my writing. That includes the Hell Priest's alternative name, Xipe Totec. I'm still working out what the replacement name is going to be, but I've already basically torn canon apart and sewed together the good bits in some kind of continuity quilt, so who knows._

 _More coming soon! I'm still on a roll here and I don't wanna lose it._

 _Hopefully there's more coming soon. We'll see!_


	6. Chapter 6

_I was going to start writing this right after posting five, but I kid you not as soon as I opened the document I was roped into like 3 different things. But this party's still going!_

 _Be kind and stay spooky, everyone._

 _-Inky_

* * *

"Okay, I need to make sure I heard that right. A puzzle box that leads to another dimension?"

"Yes."

"And you were there _twice?"_

"It's where I met Tiffany?"

"And it's filled with these things called Cenobites?" Terri's face was wrinkled in confusion. "Listen, I believe you, or I think I do, but..."

"I know, I know," Kirsty said, pushing her hair from her face. She'd gotten another cup of coffee on request and was holding onto it like a lifeline. "It's... a lot. But yes, according to the notes I read in Dr. Channard's office..."

"I'm calling him Dr. Dick from now on, by the way." Kirsty smiled at that, and even laughed, just the tiniest bit. She didn't see Joey behind her, smiling as well and giving Terri an approving nod.

"That is pretty fitting. Good God, he was awful..." Kirsty shook her head, before collecting herself again. "They were members of some... religion, I think? Or school of thought... but they believed in the exploration of sensation to unimaginable extremes."

"That would sound _so_ hot if you hadn't told me they were all gored up." Joey swatted Terri's arm and Kirsty laughed, half in shock and half because, well, Terri wasn't entirely _wrong._ All three were laughing now, quietly, and for a moment Kirsty wanted to take it as a sign that everything really was fine. When she glanced at Terri, though, she saw a thoughtful expression that put worry in her bones. It looked like she was trying to remember something. "Hey, I don't want to upset you," she started, "I know that kind of flashback can seriously suck..."

"Yes?" Kirsty leaned forward a bit, gripping her coffee again and trying to still her trembling hand.

"But did one of them have, like..." she hesitated, before holding her hand up and drawing lines across and down her face with her fingers, "lines, kind of, like he shoved his face in a grip paper printer?" Kirsty stared at her, just for a moment. Joey put a hand on Kirsty's shoulder, which was enough to make her nod in response.

"With... pins..."

"Yes! Oh my god, okay, the pins were so weird, that makes so much sense now!" Terri quickly realized her mistake, because she immediately went on, "J.P. bought this crazy sculpture with that kind of a face on it, with all these writhing bodies and bones and crap. I thought it was some kind of weird religious thing..." She trailed off as Kirsty looked at her with wide, shocked eyes.

"...Where is it now?" She whispered, "can you show me?"

"I sold it. This woman gave me over a thousand for it, no questions, just a note with the bills." She pulled it out of her pocket and showed it to Kirsty, who went paper-white. "Just an address. She was gone with the thing before I could ask, but I'm pretty sure it's..."

"The museum," Kirsty finished. She swallowed and looked at her sister. "We... Joey, I think we need to go back."

"We do anyway," Joey said, holding up her phone. "Tiffany wants us for something urgent - she says it _has_ to be in person, and she's in a hurry. Kirsty, are you going to be okay...?"

"I can manage." Kirsty looked back to Terri. "I'll pay for gas if you can bring us back."

"Don't need to, I've got it covered. There's a gas station that way, I can get you there in maybe ten minutes?"

"I'll tell Tiffany," Joey said with a nod. "Thank you so much for your help, Terri."

"Seriously, thank you," Kirsty added, and despite herself she set her coffee down to give Terri a short hug. She seemed surprised, but after a moment her arms wrapped around Kirsty, awkward but gentle.

"Girls look out for each other," she said, and Kirsty smiled. She was scared - of _course_ she was scared - but with Joey, Tiffany, and now Terri on the team, maybe she could believe things would work out okay.

* * *

It was all too easy sometimes, Angelique mused to herself. All she'd had to do was call for help before two guards came calling, one already ready to fire his adorable little gun. They flocked to her like flies, and with a bat of her lashes and a small pout she had them wrapped around her finger.

Not quite as much as she would have liked, though. instead of following her as she'd hoped, the senior officer assured her the basement she thought she'd heard something from was off limits and they'd know if somebody was down there. She wanted to protest that they clearly hadn't noticed her twice before, but then that would give up the whole game.

So here she was, being escorted to safety and away from her fellow conspirator, masking her fury with a troubled look and a grip on the younger officer's arm that he was clearly having trouble ignoring. She could take a small comfort in that bit of amusement, at least, even if she would have preferred to rip them apart there and then.

A man was approaching them from across the dark hallway. For a second her irritation threatened to shatter what patience she had left - after such a day of inconveniences all she wanted was to sink her claws into ripe flesh - but a small whiff of him was all it took to lift her anger from her shoulders and for her smile to turn genuine. She did not need to see his face to know the scent of his blood.

"Mr. Merchant," the older officer said, "this young miss was lost in one of the back rooms. She said she heard something in the basement. We already have Renard down there, should we send backup?"

The LeMerchand, a man with dark circles under his eyes and coffee on his breath, shook his head. "We'll wait for him to get back to us before sending anyone down. The backup generator should be ready in about fifteen minutes." He turned to Angelique, his eyes moving down for just a moment before coming back up. "In the meantime, miss, would you please stay with me? We're trying to get everything back on track for the opening, and I'm afraid I can't just let people wander around."

"Of course, Mr. Merchant, please forgive me." She smiled her ruby smile at him and let go of the officer's arm, taking his hand instead. Her red nails traced over his skin, and she felt the tiniest of shudders from him. Perfect. "I am such an admirer of your work, I just couldn't wait any longer to see the exhibit..."

"That's quite flattering, miss," he said as he sent the two officers off, and the younger one walked away with a grumble, "but I'm afraid with the chaos now I can't just let you wander around the building. We've already had enough problems today."

"I understand completely," she said, smiling, "but could you entertain an admirer of your work while you prepare?" He smiled at her, charmed by her innocent face.

"I don't see why not. What do you want to know?"

"You see, I've done quite a bit of research into your family's work..."

* * *

Tiffany found the car Joey had told her to parked about a block from the museum, and Elliot had told her how to get there. A girl with black hair opened it for her when Joey said something, and Tiffany immediately took a seat and opened her laptop. Joey started to ask her what was wrong, but the incoming call came on immediately, in open defiance of there being no signal. She hit answer, and Elliot Spencer came into view.

"Tiffany, did you find everyone?" She nodded, even as Joey and Terri looked at each other in disbelief, and Elliot seemed satisfied. "Good. I'm sorry for reaching out to you with so little explanation, but I did not know how else to do it."

"Wait, who are you?" Terri asked, but Joey's eyes were wide with shock.

"Wait... you're the man from the picture, the one who..."

"Yes," he said, "I am Elliot Spencer, the man Kirsty told you about. Although I'm afraid it's a little more complicated than that."

"Wait, aren't you supposed to have, like, pins and leather all over you?" Terri looked at Joey, who looked at Tiffany, who did not look away from the screen.

"That's the complication, actually," Elliot said, looking grim. "The doctor did something to him - to me - when he killed me. Something severed us in half, and for some reason I was unable to return to my Cenobitic half before the restoration process could begin. He's loose inside the museum, and I'm afraid he's not himself without me."

"Wait, so are you his humanity, then?" Tiffany signed it first, but Joey translated. Elliot shook his head.

"Yes and no. It's not such a clean cut as that; I have pieces of him and he has parts of me, but what I'm missing from him is much less dangerous than what he lacks without me. I embody his inhibitions, his code of honor, but also his past, while he embodies my desires, my passions, and my future. Without me he is quite capable of human emotion, but there is nothing to keep his ambition in check."

"Great, so we have a freaky pin guy with no conscience and a bunch of freaky magic buildings in that museum that can probably do all kinds of weird crap." Terri was eating a lollipop, and bit into it with a crunch. "So what do we do?"

"The good news is he's much, much weaker than he expected. He's missing something - that's why I reached out to you specifically." He turned his attention to Tiffany. "Do you remember the night of the attack?" She nodded slowly. "One of his pins was lost in the incident. I'm afraid I can't remember how, but I believe it can be found. If he regains it on his own, then he'll be unstoppable, but if one of you can get close enough to return it yourself, I can channel through it to return to our body, and hopefully reclaim control of his impulses."

"I'll do it, then," Joey said, "I'm not risking any of you getting hurt." Tiffany started to protest, her hands poised to say that it should be her, that she wasn't one of his intended targets the first time, but Elliot shook his head.

"I'm afraid that won't work. There's only one person I can imagine getting that close to him. I am a man who cares very deeply and swiftly, I can admit that. But Kirsty's the one who has the best chance of knowing where the pin is."

Joey took in a breath. She didn't like it, but if Kirsty was the one who had the pin, then it looked like they didn't have a choice but to ask her; even if it meant stirring up old demons. She was pulled out of her thoughts by Tiffany tugging on her shoulder.

"Joey," Tiffany signed, "Where is Kirsty?"

* * *

 _I accidentally included a line I intended for a later chapter. It's been fixed, sorry for the confusion._

 _\- Inky_


	7. Chapter 7

_No scene change this time - I've been itching to get to this chapter, and hopefully it'll prove worth the wait for you all, too._

* * *

They'd parked in what technically wasn't a parking spot, but Terri argued that it didn't count if she didn't turn the car off. Kirsty slipped out of the car, gripping her coffee cup - a new one - and stepped away to where the museum was. She could still hear the clamor of the crowd, but it had shrunken a great deal since their first visit.

How much time had passed...?

Kirsty reached for her phone just long enough to text Joey that she needed some air, quickly slipping it back into her purse. She just started walking - minding where the car was but otherwise not aiming for any particular destination. Perhaps she shouldn't have been surprised when she found herself behind the museum, staring at the closed and locked doors.

 _It's better this way,_ she thought to herself, though it felt like a lie. Truthfully she wanted to go in - to face the demons now, to get the hard part over and done with so she could just deal with whatever was down there.

Kirsty laughed. The hard part was risking another panic attack, not confronting an inhuman pain zealot who was supposed to be dead. What had happened to her that so skewed her priorities?

She was walking again. It was her own choice, but it felt odd - like an invisible hand on her back gently guiding her to the door. She reached for the handle and shook it; nothing, no give whatsoever. Another shake, and again the door didn't budge. She let go, and after a moment felt a small, frustrated laugh bubble up in her throat. She looked at the ground, smiling in disbelief. What was she _doing?_

Another thought popped into her head. It was an absurd little thought, and this was dangerous besides...

... but the _pull_ she felt was unbearable. She _needed_ to see what was inside that building. So Kirsty took in a breath, lifted her hand, and knocked, twice, on the heavy door.

"Hello?" She said to the empty air, barely hearing herself over the crowd past the building. "It's Kirsty. I'd like to come in, please."

For a second there was nothing, and she felt remarkably stupid. What if somebody had _seen_ that? She was almost about to walk away when she heard a small, polite click. _There's no way,_ Kirsty thought, but reached for the door handle again. It turned in her hand, easy as anything, and the door opened expectantly for her. Of course there was nobody on the other side, but she had expected that, at least.

Kirsty took a breath. It would be so easy to just walk back to the car right now. She thought about Joey, who'd ask if she was okay, and Terri, who was already nice to her. She thought about Tiffany at home, probably reading and having a wonderful day off that she'd tell her sisters all about once this absurd day was over and they'd all gone home.

She thought about the casket on her desk, and how she used to talk to it, to him, and how it'd helped her get through tough decisions. She wished she could talk now.

Instead, she released her breath and stepped through the door, into the welcoming darkness.

The museum's halls felt somehow more hostile than before, darker even than when the power had first gone out. She wasn't sure if that was her imagination or if she was just tired. Which she was - she had been utterly exhausted since coming out of the panic attack, tired in her bones, in her muscles. She had been blinking heavily in the car and nodding off, and had only stayed awake by virtue of her coffee. She was only more awake now because she couldn't afford to be anything else.

 _I could turn around at any moment,_ Kirsty thought as she walked further into the building, down the hall. She somehow knew exactly where to go; her destination a complete mystery, but the way there effortless. She turned a corner and only paused once to glance back at the door, but that didn't feel right. _I could be walking right into a trap for all I know._ She thought about the Cenobites who had pursued her - all dead. Would another seek revenge, or to collect dues unpaid?

She could hear the faint sound of mechanical humming in the background. Kirsty figured it must have been the air conditioning, or perhaps things would power up soon. She hoped so, considering her hand to the wall was the only thing keeping her anchored in the dark, unreadable space. She could feel those imagined eyes on her as she walked, peering down at her in the darkness.

There was a loud metal _clang_ and Kirsty took off running.

She didn't think. She didn't consider the mechanical architecture or the notion of the power coming back on, she just ran. She could hear a pounding in her ears and she could barely run in the first place but pushed forward even as her body screamed in protest. There was something in the dark and she could remember that fleshy thing in the Labyrinth halls and it was _after her_ and she had to run, run as fast as she could-

A wall slammed into her. She turned and ran blindly, crashing into corners. A rip of fabric as her jacket caught on something but she kept running, turning, until she reached a hallway that was not like the rest of the building. She leaned against the wall, breath ragged, and she was calm just long enough to realize the hall was actually dimly lit before another _clang_ sent her sprinting.

She crashed through the door and into a room flooded with dim blue light, shadows and metal. Above her - had she gone downstairs? - she heard the continued _clangs_ and groans of shifting metal, like Goliath trapped between the walls. She stumbled backwards, knees shaking, trying to capture her breath again as she felt what energy she'd had fizzle out and the world start to grow dim. She took another step back, arm reaching behind her to grab something for support. A hand caught it and she bumped up against something behind her.

Her coffee cup fell from her hand and spilled across the floor.

She tensed up and started to turn, but a hand slipped into her hair, fingers cool on her hot scalp. She turned to look even as her eyes failed to focus, but she could see black, white, and something glittering.

"You..." she whispered, and the hand on her head gently scratched at her skin. She felt her exhaustion settle on her shoulders like a blanket. Her eyes wouldn't stay open. _This was a mistake,_ she thought in her haze, _I can't stay up._

"Then rest," came that voice she only partway realized she shouldn't have been hearing, "there is time. I can wait longer yet, Kirsty." Her better impulses told her not to, but he pulled her close and ran that hand down her hair and she just could not hold on. Kirsty let herself sink into her exhaustion and a pair of leather-bound arms, the dark swallowing her whole.

* * *

 _Woof. That's the one I've been itching to do for a week now. Hopefully soon I'll get the next chapter up, and then the real fun begins!_

 _That being said, I want to clarify now that this story has no non-con or dub-con in regards to Pinsty or any other ships. Horror, yes, but that's a line I can't imagine even Unbound Pinhead crossing. So for now, I hope you enjoyed this, but I seriously can't keep my eyes open._

 _Be kind and stay spooky, everyone._

 _-Inky_


	8. Chapter 8

_I'm going to be honest - for the past four chapters or so, I'd completely forgotten where I intended to put the box in this story. I honestly had no idea who had it as I was writing, just that it wasn't Kirsty. It's more elusive than the pin!_

 _Ah well. We're back on track with that little plot point, ya'll. Onward and upward. Be kind and stay spooky._

 _-Inky_

* * *

"Kirsty?!" Joey was the one who could shout, but Tiffany was faster. They had both left Terri in the car as soon as they'd realized Kirsty was missing - not answering her phone, nowhere to be seen, not even anyone around who could have seen her. Joey ran behind her sister and shouted Kirsty's name.

It was only a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity later that Tiffany stopped in her tracks. Joey caught up to find her staring, hands unmoving at her sides.

"Tiffany?" She looked at her sister, but Tiffany didn't budge at first. Joey followed her gaze, and her heart dropped into her stomach. It was the back door to the museum, hanging just slightly ajar. That by itself wouldn't have been an issue, were it not for the sound.

It was the sound of a crowd cheering, finally pouring into the museum for the opening event. There were still hundreds flocking in, even with those that'd left before, and if Kirsty had come in before them...

"How the hell are we supposed to find her like this?" She looked to Tiffany, who was already texting Kirsty again. No responses came - she didn't even leave them on read. Tiffany looked at Joey with glistening eyes, then back to her phone. She switched contacts.

[Kirsty's missing] she typed, and Joey watched as a little bubble indicated Captain Spencer's response.

[I found her, but I can't reach her.] Joey and Tiffany looked at each other with wide eyes.

[Where is she?]

[She's safe, but I don't know for how long. My other half has her, and unfortunately he's not alone. They're somewhere in the museum, but I don't have a sense of where, just that it's dark.]

[Is he going to hurt her?!]

[It doesn't look that way, but he isn't my main concern regarding Kirsty. I can't get close to her either, but there is another resident of the Labyrinth wandering around, and she seems to have plans of her own that involve the Cenobite Prince. I will try to warn her of his companion before she returns, but in the meantime, you two try to get back inside. I'll work with Terri. Good luck.]

He stopped typing. Tiffany pocketed her phone and looked at her sister; Joey nodded, face uncertain.

"I can get us inside," she said, "but getting past security will be tricky. Kirsty would be able to handle it no problem." She looked back to the museum. "...If we can figure out who his companion is, do you think we can follow her to where Kirsty is?"

"We could," Tiffany signed, "but what if she does hurt Kirsty before we can get to her?"

"Good point. We can try to figure out what she wants first, and maybe how to slow it down." Joey tied her hair back, a firm look on her face. "But we _are_ getting our sister back. Are you ready?" Tiffany nodded, and the two slipped into the back door. It closed behind them.

* * *

 _Damn._ Despite her efforts, they'd gotten the power back on; perhaps she should have been more thorough with her attempts to keep those wretched crowds at bay. Now they flocked the museum, pointing and chattering and saying _look how pretty!_ at the designs that mirrored her true home, a pale reflection of paradise.

She would fix that soon, she thought to herself as she followed the tour group through the halls. To her frustration, the LeMerchand led the group, clearly too focused on his presentation to remember her. She had almost coaxed him into showing her the basement, where she could have gotten him started on his _real_ work, but that was clearly not going to happen at _least_ until nightfall. Angelique would have growled in frustration if there weren't so many witnesses.

This was proving fruitless. She split off from the group, weaving her way through cologne-covered and perfume-soaked patrons, making her way for the basement. If she could not get to work on opening the portal now, she could at least enquire to her newest toy about where he supposed the Lament Configuration could have been.

Toy indeed. Though she had yet to see him as the Leviathan intended, what she _had_ seen was quite impressive; an immaculate face calculatingly decorated, a tomb carved with devotion and intricate detail. This was a Prince worth keeping, alright; though he hardly possessed the experience of those before him, clearly he'd taken no time in claiming a reputation in their world of respect, admiration, and fear. Yes, he'd make a fine toy until she could open the portal and claim this world alongside her own.

Angelique slipped past the guards and made her way back to the basement entrance, and as she did the air grew thick with the taste of the Labyrinth. Despite her frustration, she smiled. It seemed she would be pleasantly surprised.

And indeed she was, for at the bottom of the stairs she found a pile of rubble in the column's place; but more important was the figure behind it, striding in from behind some boxes. _Did he wait until I returned to make that entrance?_ She thought with a hint of amusement, stepping forward.

"It seems the extra help is unnecessary," she said, eyes drinking in the sight before her. Oh, he was a work of Leviathan without question; a soldier's posture and broad shoulders bound in exquisitely-shaped leather, marred only by the wounds inflicted on his front. Despite herself, Angelique quietly hummed in approval.

"So it seems," he responded, "though your fortune does not appear so rich. Was your search wasted, Princess?"

"Not so," she responded with a pout, resisting the urge to fold her arms over her chest. He looked down at her between the pins that masked his face, and she had to say that the missing one was less pronounced when she had to look up to make eye contact. "I found our LeMerchand, and while he does not have the Configuration, I can sense its influence." She reached up and stroked his cheek, just for a moment, and those black eyes followed her hand. They were the color of the Labyrinth's waters, she thought, but before she could continue he caught her wrist. The prince did not squeeze it, but did lower it.

"That is where we should put our focus, then," he said with a trace of disinterest she didn't appreciate, "if we are to open the doors as you so hope, Princess."

"Do you not hope so as well?" She could taste the ambition seeping off of him - none of the restraint of a Leviathan's Son. Still he did not appear as interested as she had hoped, but perhaps that was only because he needed some persuasion.

"Hope is not an indulgence of mine," he said, and while she could sense the _but_ floating on the end of that sentence, he didn't speak it. Instead he folded his hands behind his back. "I am interested in flesh, and how best to subjugate it to my design." She took a step to his side, slowly circling around him, and let herself smile.

"And what is your design, then?" She asked, watching his eyes follow her until she disappeared behind him, stepping back into view on the other side. "Do they involve all those lovely toys hanging at your waist?"

"I believe you would know them well, Angelique. The Labyrinth has always been a continuation of what has come before it." He appeared nonplussed as she traced hand down his chest, even as a drop of red blood stained her finger. She pressed further; he moved her hand away. "I've heard stories of the time before the Cenobites, Princess." His tone turned... well it was _something,_ but she couldn't tell if it was teasing or a warning. "A great many stories, of seduction and ensnaring of souls."

Whatever he intended, Angelique decided, he did not sound impressed. Did he think himself better than her? Were he not Leviathan's chosen of the age, she'd have slapped him for such an implication, however imagined. _But this is not the time,_ she thought to herself, and smiled at him again.

"It has been so long since then," she cooed, pushing the thought from her mind, "Surely you wouldn't mind catching me up on a few things, hm?" She hoped for a spark, a raise of an eyebrow, _something,_ but there was no light of interest in the Prince's eyes. "Tell me about the souls that restored you. Where are they now?"

"Returned to the Labyrinth," he said, "to be shaped by the Engineer, no doubt. I did not control the column, though I had my own designs for them had I the opportunity." There may not have been interest in her, but she could hear the cruelty laced in his voice, the turning of gears in his dark mind. Perhaps there was a way to get through to him after all.

"There will be plenty opportunity," she said with a smile, daring to reach her hand up again, "to enact your designs, Cenobite, when both realms are ours to command. I can promise you that. And I would be delighted," she said as she traced his jaw with one blood-stained finger, "to see such designs in person."

Any gentility in his touch was gone; he grabbed her hand away and dropped it beside her, even as he smiled with such a look that could have been either genuine interest or its mocking facsimile. His grip had been fleeting, but she could feel the twinge of a budding bruise nonetheless.

"Such promises, Princess," he said, a hint of mirth in his tone. She pouted, but he did not sway. "Let's not waste time making more. We cannot proceed without the Lament Configuration. Find it, and I will remain here and take hold of the museum. I believe Merchant will be easier to bend once he is at another's mercy, rather than there whim."

Angelique's hand was hurting. Her wrist had five points that buzzed with displeasure, and she was not enjoying this game. He was a brute, this prince, a brute more interested in torture than temptation, and he was playing with her like a toy. How disrespectful, she thought, for him to disregard her legacy and talk down to her.

"I will do better than that," she said, "I will have both before anyone even knows you're here." She didn't wait for a response, instead turning and striding up the stairs and towards the din of the masses that had finally come inside. She wasn't perfectly clear on where the box was, but she had theories - and if he had been so close, the puzzle must not have been far behind.

Angelique pursed her lips. She had sensed the box before, and it would not be hard to follow her senses again. She slipped back into the crowd, through the doors of the museum, and disappeared into the afternoon buzz.

* * *

 _So this chapter got really long on me. Chapter 9 to come soon!_

 _-Inky_


	9. Chapter 9

_Not going to lie, I could spend the rest of this fic just writing Kirsty and the Unbound Prince scenes if I didn't have a plot I also cared about. Ah well. To continued productivity!_

 _Also: I just started a FictionPress account! It's the same username, so you can find me there doing some more original, experimental work! I'll be posting my first chapter soon._

 _Be kind and stay spooky, everyone!_

 _-Inky_

* * *

She'd been whimpering when he left her side, and it was a beautiful sound. It was the sort of small, vulnerable noise that detailed a few of his tamer visions, the smallest admission of vulnerability to him. This time, however, it hadn't been so sweet; not brought forth by sensation or submission, but from the depths of troubled sleep. He'd cast his best mask of rest over her eyes, gently pushing her hair from her face.

"Nightmares, Kirsty? No wonder you so desperately run from sleep." He'd cast a glance at the spilled coffee as he'd carried her, setting Kirsty's sleeping form down with care on a large crate. Hardly a bed by his standards, but nothing here met his standards but her. The one that escaped - his infuriating, magnificent Kirsty, who drank coffee like it was a lifeline and ran from sleep as she ran from the embrace of the Lament Configuration. He hadn't even needed to prod too far into her mind for that information; just a touch of her face and her sleep aversion leapt from her thoughts into his. "Such sweet torments you've yet to witness," he'd mused, "I will show you the exquisite darkness of a nightmare."

But before he could - before he had the opportunity to weave a blackened fantasy into her mind - he heard footsteps at the stairs, and smelled the stench of the Labyrinth grow stronger. The Princess had returned. So he'd left his Kirsty's side, however frustrating it was when he'd only just had her again, to entertain his peer.

He would not share her, he'd decided, not with Angelique, nor with his fellow Cenobites. She had walked into his arms - she was _his_ prize.

Finally Angelique disappeared back up the stairs. The Prince waited and counted the moments - one, two, three, four - for her to fade away. Satisfied she was gone, he returned to where he'd hidden Kirsty away.

Of course she wasn't there, but he'd expected that. That meant she was awake, and Angelique was already gone.

All the more time to play, he thought. The Prince smiled and strolled in her direction - after all, she'd hardly gotten far, and he wasn't in any rush to scare her off.

* * *

Kirsty woke to darkness - a soft blue darkness, but darkness nonetheless. Her heart thrummed anxiously for a moment as she looked around, pushing herself up from a wooden crate she didn't remember sitting on, but it soon settled as she realized she was alone.

Alone where?

She slid off of the crate and picked her purse off from the floor. The strap had held, thankfully, and she felt... surprisingly rested. Had it been a full night's sleep, then? She couldn't remember the last time she'd managed eight hours... No, she could hear people buzzing upstairs. Nobody would be up this late, certainly not in such a large group. It must have been the same day.

 _Why was I asleep?_ The thought struck her abruptly. She had been... running. Something in the museum had startled her, that was right...

Kirsty started walking, not in any particular direction, trying to think. She'd heard a noise and started running, because she was in... the museum. She turned along a stack of crates. The museum scared her, that was right... so she'd run and gone downstairs. It was blue. _So that's where I am now._ Good, she knew where she was, that was good. So she'd run downstairs, and before there was the panic attack, so she'd been drained already. So she must have fainted, not fallen asleep.

 _But how did I end up on the crate?_ Kirsty found a mirror. It was actually three, a folding structure waiting for her, and she approached it. A fourth mirror, smaller, stood at face level. Kirsty gazed in, looked at herself for anything odd, any clues. She was still in her work clothes, no coffee stains, no injuries. Her hair was a bit tussled - had somebody messed with it?

 _Cool fingernails running across her scalp-_

Kirsty barely had time to panic.

"If only the mirror could show your true worth, Kirsty." She spun around and froze - there he was, pale and tall and wrapped in black. She swallowed, opened her mouth, found her words were dust in her throat. She closed it again, instead watching as he took a step closer.

The Cenobite leader. The last one to fall to Channard. She looked at his forehead.

He hadn't replaced the pin.

"I wonder what others see when they look at you," he continued, and she let him approach despite herself. He loomed over her, voice somehow darker than before, something in his eyes... different. Colder, hungrier. She couldn't explain why. "Do they only see your face, your human beauty? Are they ignorant to your potential, Kirsty? Can they imagine your promise, see you as I see you?"

"You're alive," she finally said, voice frail. "You... You came back." He smiled a little at that, and it looked just a little wrong, though she couldn't explain why.

"I did." His words stirred her soul, with that impossible voice of his that she'd never quite forgotten. "Did you think this chapter would end so abruptly, Kirsty?"

"You..." she swallowed, hesitated. "I don't know," she said with honesty, finally straightening up a little, trying to meet just a bit of his height. "I remember what I saw, but I had to reach the door before it closed."

"You could have stayed." He leaned closer, the pin on his nose almost brushing hers. "I would have waited for you, Kirsty. I have waited so patiently for you." She didn't know what to say to that at first - just looked at those pitch-black eyes, trying to work out what she wasn't seeing in them.

"...I'm sorry," she finally said, letting her words be soft. "I didn't know." That smile again, and he took her hand - for a second she thought he might kiss it. Instead he ran his leather-clad thumb over her fingertips, before squeezing her palm just a little more than was comfortable. She swallowed again, but didn't look away. Words that had lingered in the back of her mind were bubbling up, crying out, but she hesitated.

"You want to say something," he said, and it did bother her a little that he already knew that. "Tell me." She finally looked away, towards the ground, trying to process him and the words unsaid that'd she'd expected would _stay_ unsaid. "Kirsty."

"I..." dust again. She cleared her throat. "I never had the chance to thank you," she finally managed, "for saving my life. Mine and Tiffany's." Finally there was a spark of surprise, a spark of _anything,_ in his eyes.

"...You're welcome," he said, but there was something different in his voice now. Doubt? "How fortunate that I did, that we find ourselves here."

"I suppose so," she said, to her own surprise. "What... _are_ you doing here? I didn't..."

"You didn't open the box." He finally let her hand go. "We have time to change that." The Cenobite surprised her again - he offered her his arm. "Walk with me, Kirsty. I have long awaited your company." She stared at his arm for several seconds - even in the dim blue light, she could see the cravings in the leather that was practically his skin. _This is a bad idea,_ she thought, but everything about this was a bad idea.

Kirsty looked up at him, smiling at her. She took his arm.

"Alright."


	10. Chapter 10

_We're back in business! It took a little work to figure out the best way to proceed, but I'm feeling pretty good about this chapter. Hopefully we'll be able to keep the momentum up!_

 _Be kind and stay spooky, everybody. - Inky_

* * *

She sensed it.

By the Labyrinth's mercy she sensed the box - not its presence but its influence, the energy that clung to those who had come within its reach. It wasn't in the museum at all - its only mark was that of the Merchant man - but she could tell that even if it was not close, the person who had been closest to it _was._

Angelique held her head up. She could look haughty and still be inconspicuous, even as she breathed in the perfume of the lament Configuration. The box sang her home; she just had to find her way to it. She sniffed, just a little, and followed the direction of the scent.

It carried her through the building, away from the basement. Angelique wasn't horribly concerned; for his brutishness the Prince had seemed quite content to brood by his lonesome, and any scheme he might have concocted would be easy to snuff out in a moment. As she slipped through the crowd she kept her head up, walking as briskly as she could with sweat-soaked patrons and their grubby-handed ilk all around her. They began to gravitate away from her; even if they didn't know why, she knew their most primal selves sensed and feared her power.

Her fingers twitched with each step. The Labyrinth was so close she could taste the blood-misted air, and with the gift of a perpetual door to this wretched realm, her god-world would welcome her back with open arms. It did not matter if the Prince chose her, Angelique thought, for soon she would be a queen.

She didn't even notice the wretch until they collided, sending Angelique backwards. She stepped back and quickly regained her footing, just in time to glare at the human.

"Watch where you're gong, you little-!" She stopped when the young woman looked up with her; their gaze held for a moment, and it was all Angelique needed to see something familiar.

"Excuse me," a taller woman cut in, but Angelique tuned her out as she stared at the girl before her. This girl, this blonde little wretch, had eyes that had seen the Labyrinth.

She was _so_ close. Angelique smiled.

"I'm so sorry, that was uncalled for," she said in her honey-voice, "I'm just in a rush to get home. Please forgive me." She walked around the young woman, leaving both to start gesturing to each other as she made her way to the door, where the sweet perfume of the Labyrinth called to her.

* * *

"I did miss you, Kirsty."

She couldn't completely suppress the incredulity in her expression; thankfully her unexpected companion seemed entertained by it, as he laughed when she looked at him with what must have been barely-restrained surprise. "Is it so hard to believe?" He asked, putting his hand on hers. She didn't know how she felt about this whole thing, and he really wasn't helping.

"I... don't understand why," she said after a moment, "when all things considered I've caused you nothing but trouble since the moment we met." Had he always been this expressive? The amused little smile seemed unfamiliar, the way all of him did right now. For the life of her Kirsty couldn't place why, especially when they were barely more than strangers to begin with, but somehow-

"That is true," he said, "your presence certainly seems to invite interesting times."

"That's a polite way of putting it."

"That being said," he continued, "Interesting is a welcome change after so many years of the same exploration. You've given me a great deal to think about since we first met. You've inspired ideas." Kirsty's eyes fell to the tools at his waist. "Only some along those lines."

"Not comforting."

"My apologies." Kirsty looked back up at him, trying to read his face. It was like staring at a page full of Latin.

"You're allowed to ask questions, Kirsty. I will not begrudge them." Why didn't he just read her mind for what he wanted to hear? "I prefer your voice." Oh.

"What... kind of ideas?" _Mistake,_ she thought, she should have asked anything else. But the Prince did not show any signs of danger, no more than usual, as he contemplated her question.

"... When I was resurrected," he began, "it was not all at once. I was encased in a sort of sleep, I suppose, a healing rest. I had a great deal of time during that rest to think, Kirsty, about what transpired that night." He looked at her. "You surprised us a great deal, Kirsty, and we're not often surprised." She couldn't find an answer, so he kept on. "I believe you changed me that day. In so little time you changed everything I knew, showed my home to me in a way I had been blind to."

"I'm not sure I understand where this is going." That little bemused smile again, and Kirsty frowned. What was he getting at?

"What do you know about me?" What kind of question was _that?_ "Not the man I was; as I am now. What do you think you know?"

"I..." she swallowed, sorting through memories, trying to find the roots of them. What did she know? "You... are the leader of a group of... Cenobites. An order of... scholars? Scientists?"

"Explorers, Kirsty."

"That was the word, yes." She frowned a little. "And you seek to... explore the limitations of sensation, beyond what we can imagine."

"Very good, but that is the _order."_ Was he _messing_ with her? "I am talking about myself." She searched her mind, trying to narrow it down, and suddenly felt a pang of guilt.

"Just that you're the leader, I think. I... don't even know your name," she said, voice quiet. He'd saved her life, and she didn't even have that to offer him? He didn't seem disturbed by it.

"You are not supposed to. Our names are private - the monikers you may hear are only there for convenience." They'd circled around the floor in the span of their conversation, and he let her go as she stepped back into the mirror's gaze. "And I am more than the leader of my Gash, Kirsty. I am the chosen Son of Leviathan, the leader of _all_ Cenobites. I am the one who they answer to, the one who maintains order within the Labyrinth in the name of our creators."

He let the words hang in the air, and Kirsty felt a great weight in her chest as she realized the implications of what he'd said.

"And... I'm the one who got you killed. I ruined... everything for you."

"On the contrary, dear Kirsty." There was a danger in the softness of his voice. "You saved me. And I want to return the favor."

* * *

"That was her." Tiffany had been trying to sign that for perhaps two minutes, but her hands were shaking from looking that woman in the eyes. The Labyrinth had stared back at her; for that second they had looked at each other Tiffany had ben lost in the maze of pleasure and pain, strange wonders, that nightmare realm Channard had tried to sacrifice her to. She was still shaking now, even as she looked at her sister.

"Are you sure?" Joey believed her, or believed that Tiffany believed what she was saying. Terri had texted her that she'd forgotten her phone at the Boiler Room and needed to get it, so now they didn't even have a car. Tiffany nodded at Joey, biting back tears from how shaken the woman's stare had left her.

"She looked like Hell. I saw it in her eyes. She has the same eyes as the Cenobites." The Labyrinth, that awful Labyrinth where Channard had almost made her his permanent plaything or left her for dead; she didn't know which was worse. "If she's out there, then Kirsty's alone with the other Elliot. What if he hurts her?" She swallowed even as her throat burned. "What if she already hurt Kirsty?"

"Tiffany, Tiff," Joey put her hands on Tiffany's shoulders, "the Captain promised he'd keep an eye on her, remember? We'll know if anything happens, and if Kirsty could handle him before, I'm sure she'll be okay when we find her." Tiffany took a breath; Joey was right. Kirsty was the one who'd faced them more than once, and even if this was only half of the Cenobite she remembered... it was the Cenobite who gave up his life to save them. She had to remember that.

"We should follow her," Tiffany signed, "and try to figure out where she's going. Maybe we can stop her from coming back. Maybe when Terri comes back..."

She couldn't finish the thought, however, because Joey's phone buzzed. She grabbed it and immediately put it on speaker. "Hello?"

"Joey, Tiffany, are you still in the museum?" Tiffany did not like the tone of the Captain's voice.

"Yes, why?" Joey didn't either, from the way she was frowning.

"One of you needs to find a way to the Boiler Room, and do it quickly. I can't get to any of you without a phone, and that other entity from the Labyrinth... I'm afraid she's following Terri."


	11. Chapter 11

_I sure do use a lot of cliffhangers considering they usually drive me crazy. I couldn't wait to continue, so here we go!_

* * *

"Terri!" He couldn't take over the radio properly, to his frustration; every attempt he made was met with static and Terri changing the channel when he couldn't speak over the music. "Terri, you need to get back to the museum, now!" It was useless and he knew it. Captain Elliot was functionally trapped in the airwaves, cursing his other half for holding onto his (their?) physical form, leaving him desperate for something to channel himself into to reach her.

There was a cab with the other Labyrinth-dweller two cars behind them; he'd been in the middle of messaging Joey when she spotted Joey, and now all Elliot could do was float around the car and hope Terri realized that chill up her spine was a warning. He couldn't even get into the other car; she was no Cenobite, this creature, and something about her energy repelled him with no cracks to slip though.

Terri drove quickly, thank Leviathan, but so did the cab. The driver seemed quite calm, which was also distressing in its own way, because if she could so easily mingle with humans, would Terri suspect anything?

Except this was the woman, Elliot remembered, who had bought the column from Terri in the first place. That gave him some small hope, but it wasn't much. Joey and Tiffany were still trying to figure out how to get to the Boiler Room, and who'd be better off going; when he'd left her phone, Joey had been asking Tiffany if she'd be safe in the museum by herself.

Nobody was safe, Elliot thought, not when his other half had no laws of the labyrinth to hold him back. _Oh Kirsty,_ Elliot thought, _please be safe with him..._

He did care deeply for Kirsty, but "deeply" was subjective. Even this panic felt underwhelming; he only acted out of urgency, the knowledge that this was the right thing to do or as close as he could get to it, the understanding that he _should_ have been worried. But how hollow a worry it was when the worst of his hungers had followed with the best of his passions. He could only hope Kirsty could bring that best out as she had before, at least long enough to...

The Boiler Room. Terri's phone. They were still blocks away, but Elliot knew what he could do. He flew from the car, unseen and unfelt beyond a shiver from Terri, his mission the only thing in his mind. He could only hope Terri found the cell phone first.

It started ringing.

* * *

Joey and Tiffany had been frantically signing at each other when Joey's phone buzzed.

[I found Terri's phone] came the message, and they looked at each other in relief. Tiffany nodded and Joey started typing.

[Is she there yet?]

[Almost, but the woman isn't far behind. I couldn't do anything to disrupt the drive or warn Terri, but I did catch their license plate and phone number on the side of the cab. Perhaps you can do something with that?" The two numbers appeared below, and Joey smiled.

[I can work with that. You keep trying to reach Terri, I think we've got a plan.] She looked up at Tiffany. "Think we should try to find Kirsty?"

Tiffany nodded. "They're working together, right? We just need to get her long enough to fill her in, and if she knows where the pin is, maybe we can get it while she keeps him distracted?" Joey frowned a little bit.

"Are you sure that's safe?" Tiffany shook her head.

"None of this is safe, Joey, but Kirsty's good at this. We just need a few minutes."

"We need to get her out of the museum first." Joey looked down at her phone and started texting. "In the meantime, let's see if we can't slow down that cab..."

Tiffany watched her sister as she started the call, feeling the slightest bit of relief as Joey went into her "professional" voice and started talking. She couldn't help feeling a little lost; even with people starting to leave she didn't have a clue where to start looking for Kirsty, who _still_ wasn't answering her phone, and trying to figure out where a Cenobite would even hide in such a large building felt like nothing short of impossible. Even so, she had to try something.

She grabbed her own cell phone and, feeling a bit ridiculous for it as she typed, hit send. She shoved her phone back into her purse, looking around, trying to find _something_ to make this easier. She glanced at the wall across the room.

There was something red.

* * *

"Return... what?" Kirsty was holding her purse in her lap, staring at her hands. The Prince had left her alone, for what he'd promised wouldn't be longer than a few minutes, to contemplate the conversation they'd just had.

 _Return the favor_ meant _making her like him._ Except not quite. "Every age," he'd said, "has two Chosen leaders: a child of Leviathan and a Child of the Labyrinth. I am the Son of Leviathan of this age, the Age of Order." He'd said that almost with reverence, a pride she'd never heard from him even when they first met. "But the age is not truly begun until the Labyrinth's chosen stands side by side with Leviathan's."

He'd taken her hand, the hand she was staring at now in her lap, and he'd looked at her... she couldn't find the words for it. "Come with me, Kirsty. Come back through the doors, to my side. The Labyrinth awaits you with open arms; together we can transform the age in our own image."

She had been stunned by his words, by his sincerity, the fervor in his expression even as his voice remained steady. Her hands were shaking; it didn't feel like excitement. Something about that - something about the way he said that - had been almost frightening, like she was staring into a hungry abyss.

"And what if the Labyrinth doesn't choose me?" She'd asked, and his answer had been chilling.

"It will, Kirsty." He had turned cold so quickly, though when he'd seen how obviously that had startled her he'd backed off. "Consider it, Kirsty. That is all I will ask of you." She didn't know where he was now, somewhere in the basement, but even with the distance she dared not speak what that small sentence had confirmed, brought to light that doubt that had lingered in the shadows of her mind.

Something was _wrong_ with him.

There was a short buzzin her purse, and Kirsty suddenly realized she'd left her phone on silent.

She turned it on, hands still shaking, and felt a pang when she saw missed calls and messages flood the screen. They must have been worried sick about her. At the top was a message from Tiffany, not even a minute old.

[Kirsty, please answer soon. Just tell me you're safe.] There were several messages before it, from both her and Joey and...

No way.

[Kirsty, please listen to me,] the message read when she opened it. [The man you are with is not who you think. He is incomplete, unbound from his duties as the leader of the Cenobites, and he is not alone. We need to restore him to his true self, and quickly. We need the pin] The pit in her stomach dropped - there _was_ something wrong, it wasn't just her. Was this her doing? Because of that stupid pin? [Try to get away from him, and quickly. Joey and Tiffany are looking for you.] She flipped back to Tiffany's messages and typed.

[I'll try to get back up.] She hit send and pocketed the phone, pulling her purse back over her shoulder. She had... not a plan, but an idea. Hopefully that was all she'd need.

"I have a question," she called into the darkness, and the Prince stepped into the light before her. Had he been just out of sight? She tried not to jump, even as she stared at those eyes that were emptier than before.

"Yes, Kirsty?" His voice was gentle, and it didn't really comfort her. She stood back up from the crate, sucking in a breath through her nose.

"Your, um..." she gestured to her forehead. "Your pin. The one that's..."

"Missing," he finished dryly, "what about it?"

"Do you... need it? To go home? You told me it wasn't supposed to come out."

"Did I?" A thoughtful hum. "That is technically true. I appreciate your concern, Kirsty, but it will be easy to obtain a new one once-"

"I know where it is," she said, and he blinked, surprised. "I still have it. I can bring it back to you, here, and you won't... you won't have to." He took a step forward.

"...Is this a game, Kirsty?" He asked, and she fought the urge to back away. "I do enjoy our games, but this..."

"I promise," she said, "it isn't. It really isn't. I know where it is." She swallowed. "I'll bring it back here to you. You have my word." He seemed to consider the offer, but there was a coolness now that made Kirsty want to run. She couldn't, though, even as he stepped forward again, looming over her like a shadow.

"...And what if you don't, Kirsty? What if you're lying to me?" The knot tightened in her stomach, but she had to stand her ground on this.

"...Then I'll come back anyway," she said, "with or without it. I swear." A pause, and he nodded, smile a little strange.

"I will be waiting for you here, Kirsty." He was gone in a blink of her eyes, just as he'd appeared, and Kirsty ran for the stairs. She scrambled up, heart pounding, and pushed open the doors to the floor above just in time for the fire alarm to go off.


	12. Chapter 12

"Turn the phone off."

Terri nodded, hands shaking as she followed the order. She had only seen the screen long enough for Elliot to stop typing and to feel that chill down her back again, but when she'd heard the knock on the door - well, shame on her for thinking nothing on it.

But now that woman - and it made too much sense that it was the same woman who bought the column - had red nails pressed up against her throat, and Terri was fighting to breathe without crying. The arm choking her was soaked in red stickiness. The woman smiled, but it was one of those smiles that meant Terri was in trouble.

"Very good. Now, where is it?" Terri wheezed, and felt the grip loosen a little. She sucked in a gasp before even trying to speak.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said, voice shaking. "Please, let me go..."

"The _box,_ girl, the Lament Configuration. You stink of its presence, as does this entire place. Where is it?"

"I don't know, I swear-" Another squeeze and Terri yelped, a sound like air through a rusted pipe. "I don't! This whole place is empty!"

"You're lying." That voice had been so pretty the first time, but now Terri wanted to shrink away from it. She wanted to run back to Joey and Tiffany, to warn them, but all she could do was wince as a nail pressed into her neck. She felt wet warmth trickle down her shoulder. "It's _here,_ calling to me. I can hear the song of the Labyrinth even now. Lead me to it, or I will find it myself." Terri squeezed her eyes shut and mentally cursed J.P. Damn him, damn that column, damn his stupid tacky bedroom-

"The bedroom." It was a whisper. "I never..." she gulped, "emptied out the bedroom. Downstairs." Her eyes widened - she had _not_ meant to say that out loud. The woman's smile curled into something sinister, and Terri dropped to the floor.

She sat there for several seconds, staring at her phone and trying to breathe again.

"And to make sure you don't try anything..." She barely registered the words before she saw a polished boot come down on her phone. It came apart with the crackle of glass and plastic, and she flinched. "stay there, girl, and don't try to hide it from me." Terri closed her eyes and listened to the footsteps disappear down the stairs. The door shut with a click.

 _What do I do?_ She thought as she got up. If it wasn't there, she was dead; if it was, _everyone_ was dead. She shoved her hands in her pockets and paused, feeling something cold and metal against her skin.

It was the only idea she had. Terri sucked in another breath and crept towards the bedroom door, pressing her ear up to it.

She could hear what sounded only like chaos. _She's tearing it to pieces,_ Terri thought, swallowing again. An image of herself in that merciless grip crossed her mind. _Focus,_ she thought, and took another breath before pulling the keyring from her pocket. Her hand wasn't steady, and the keys were clanking against each other - she could only hope the chaos in the room would drown it out. She found the key quickly and took one more breath.

She locked the door and bolted. Up the stairs, out the front, to her car. She saw a taxi next to her car and felt the smallest flicker of hope. If he had a phone then she could call Joey, warn them even just a minute in advance -

She saw red seeping from the driver's seat and smeared on the windows, and screamed. Terri staggered back to her car and scrambled in, cursing when it took a moment to turn on. It did turn on, though, and she drove out of the lot, all but crying in relief. When she got to the first light, though, she glanced back - just long enough to see part of the wall of the club come down, and a woman's figure grasping something in her right hand.

Terri slammed on the gas the moment it turned green, leaving that figure in the dust.

* * *

It didn't sit well with him, and he couldn't understand why.

The prince closed his eyes and replayed the conversation in his mind. Perhaps he had come on too strong, he thought as he focused on Kirsty's expressions in his mind. She had been listening so intently, so curious, and yet when he asked her to be by side...

Had he _scared_ her? The thought angered him, but not with Kirsty; never with Kirsty, who had released him from his shackles and who he _knew_ would bring the pin back to him. Certainly she had other motives, but he knew a lie when he was given one, and the Prince was confident that she'd meant it. He could almost taste the power he lacked, his fingertips twitching with anticipation and an eagerness to take control back into his hands.

But Kirsty had not seemed so eager. She had pulled away from him - just a little, almost undetectable, but she had pulled back all the same, eyes wide as she processed his offer. It was overwhelming, perhaps, the thought of such power, the thought of such change. he could understand that. But her question...

 _"And what if the Labyrinth doesn't choose me?"_

 _"It will,"_ he'd promised, because if it didn't he would see to it that Leviathan itself would suffer the consequences. She was his queen, he had known it for as long as he had slumbered, and he would have torn down any who dared to come between her and the place beside him that was rightfully hers. There were none else who would ever be so worthy as to be Princess of the Labyrinth. Angelique paled in comparison.

 _Angelique._ The thought of the former Princess cut into his thoughts like ice, unwelcome and unbidden. She wanted to open the door perpetually, but him?

He just needed it open. The Prince smiled to himself. Pin or no pin, Kirsty would return to him, and when she did...

Well, it would do no good to make the Princess suspicious. The Prince took a breath to compose himself, testing the sound of his voice. "Princess," he said to the mirror, affecting his best look of pleasant calm, "shall we begin?"

He could hardly wait.

* * *

"Tiffany!" Joey shoved her phone in her purse right as the sprinklers came on. People were swarming at the doors, struggling to get out, and Joey didn't know whether to be angry or impressed. Tiffany pulled her hands away from the fire alarm and started signing that she didn't know how else to find Kirsty. "I know, but this isn't going to help! The taxi guy cut off halfway through the call, I don't know if-"

"Joey! Tiffany!" Both stopped and looked to who was running towards them, and Joey could have cried with relief.

"Kirsty, thank god!" Joey pulled her sister into a soaking wet hug, and felt Tiffany's arms around both of them. "We were so worried, you just disappeared on us..." Kirsty pulled away and looked at both of them, urgency in her eyes. "Let's get out of here." Both Kirsty and Tiffany nodded, and all three made for the nearest exit, having to push their way past the frantic crowds.

They made it to a batch of empty parking lot, and Joey shivered a bit in the evening air. Still, Kirsty had a determined look in her eye muddied only by the faintest trace of fear. Joey was about to start questioning her when the phone rang, and she grabbed it only to put it on speaker.

'Is everyone alright?" Kirsty actually smiled at the sound of the Captain's voice, and nodded.

"I think so," she said, "but a lot happened down there. I think we need to get caught up." She looked at Joey. "You first."

"The Cenobite leader," Joey started, "he's not alone. There's another one of them that caught Terri, this woman with black hair, and she's... Elliot can't get close to her, and Terri hasn't answered her phone. We think she may have the Lament Configuration, and if she brings it back to him, who knows what they'll do with it."

"From what I could tell, she wants to open the door between the Labyrinth and Earth," Elliot added, "but to what end I can't be sure. She's not a Cenobite, she's older than that, and the Labyrinth was brutal long before the age of Cenobites. If she's been apart from the Labyrinth so long and is still powerful enough that I can't get close to her, she's a much greater danger than even my other half. Given our situation, the only one who could take her and have a chance of winning-"

"Is the Cenobite Prince himself." Kirsty swallowed. "I promised I'd bring his pin back and," she looked at Tiffany, "I don't think he's willing to wait that long."

"If he gets the pin on his own, he'll be unstoppable," Tiffany signed, "and if Elliot doesn't fuse with him there won't be anything keeping him in control of himself." Joey nodded. It was a grim prospect, and the thought of putting Kirsty in harm's way again rotted away at her mind. Tiffany continued. "But if one of us gives it to him..."

"...Then Elliot can channel into him through us," Joey finished, swallowing. "Listen, I don't want to risk you getting hurt-"

"We don't have a choice," Kirsty said, swallowing a little. "I gave him my word I'd go back, pin or no pin. We at least have a chance if he's expecting me." Tiffany started first.

"And you think he's going to let you just stick it in his head? That seems a little..."

"Gross?" asked Joey.

"Intimate," Elliot cut in, and they all looked at the phone. "Kirsty's right - she's his favorite, she'll have the best chance of getting close to him without raising suspicions. We'll just need a way to distract him long enough to pull it off. Kirsty, do you think you can do that?"

"Yes," Kirsty said, and Joey turned to her, surprised. "The office isn't a long drive from here. I just need to get there and back before the Lament Configuration gets here." She swallowed, and Joey thought she saw a glimmer of wet in her eyes. "I want to do this."

"...Okay," Joey said, voice soft. "I don't like it, but I'll help. We can get a car here in three minutes - should we go with you?" Tiffany was already on her phone.

"No," Kirsty said, "We need to keep an eye on the museum while I'm getting the pin. You and Tiffany can stay here and keep trying to reach Terri, and once I have the pin we can regroup." She had steel in her gaze, even as water pooled at the corners of her eyes. "Please," she said, "I'm the reason this happened to happened to him. To you," she said to the phone, swallowing. "Let me fix it."

"You will, Kirsty," the Captain said, "all of you will. I'll try to get to Terri again, we can't give up on her yet."

"I called a car," Tiffany signed before handing the phone to Joey. "Please be careful, Kirsty. We love you."

"Yes," Joey said, "we do." Kirsty smiled, even as the tear finally fell down her cheek.

"I love you too," she said, "and we're going to get through this. Okay?"

"Okay," Joey and Tiffany nodded, and for a moment - for all her worry that this could go wrong - Joey believed it. She had to.


	13. Chapter 13

"I made it," Kirsty said as she slipped inside. The office was _supposed_ to be locked, but Joey always kept keys she wasn't supposed to own on her.

"Thank goodness," Elliot said, and Kirsty smiled. "I'll let Joey and Tiffany know. I trust you can take it from here?"

"Absolutely. And thank you, Elliot," she said. "We'll get you back in one piece soon."

"I know you will. Good luck, Kirsty." The phone switched off, and Kirsty pocketed it. The building was dark and quiet, but she knew it like the back of her hand. She made her way in, thinking about Elliot, thinking about the Prince.

The _real_ Cenobite Prince.

* * *

 _"Run!" Tiffany took off and Kirsty was left facing the doctor. She tried to stare him down, even as she fought back tears, but felt a cold hand on her shoulder._

 _"Run," his voice whispered in her ear, "I will be with you. Run, Kirsty." She spun around to the empty darkness and ran - turning corners she shouldn't have known, guided through the hospital maze by and unseen hand. She finally stopped after what must have been a mile's worth of hallways and gripped her knees, head falling between her shoulders as she struggled for breath._

 _She felt a hand on her cheek and looked up, her eyes meeting the pitch black gaze of the Cenobite before her._

* * *

These stairs took too long, these halls felt too winding. Kirsty couldn't get there fast enough - every second felt like another moment her chance slipped away. She all but sprinted to her office, key in her hand before she even got to the door, wishing she had left just a second earlier because even a second felt like too much time wasted. She opened the door.

* * *

 _"We do not have much time, I'm afraid," he said as she stood, "before he catches up."_

 _"What do we do?" she gasped more than asked, choking back tears. The others - his Gash all lay dead in the room she'd abandoned, and if he could do that then there was no question the man she was speaking to was next. "We can't stop him, not like that!"_

 _"You're right." The Cenobite's voice was somber. "Not like that. But there are rules that bind us, and him, though he does not know it yet." He reached towards his face._

* * *

The little wooden casket sat on her desk, waiting for her. Kirsty grabbed it - but she stopped, just for a moment, and looked at it. She looked at the little engraving, the residue of the sticker she hadn't quite peeled off. It felt like such a paltry effort, and she felt guilty she couldn't offer more.

Kirsty pressed a kiss to the wood. "I love you, Daddy," she whispered, closing her eyes, and took a breath before opening the little wooden box.

* * *

 _"What are you-" Kirsty stopped as she watched his fingers settle on a single pin, square between his eyebrows, and draw it out. A pulse of blue electricity coursed over him, and for a moment he winced in all-too-human pain._

 _"Cenobites..." he said, forcing the words out through groans of agony, "are not supposed to remove their markings. They are Leviathan's gift - to reject them is to reject the power given to us."_

 _"But how will that-" He met her eyes again, and Kirsty was frozen by that stare._

 _"But it is a greater insult to take those gifts from another Cenobite." He put the pin into her hands. "I will hold him for as long as I can, but the rest must be you, Kirsty. Drive it into his flesh, however you can." There was a pause, a moment where they just stared at each other. he leaned towards her, just a little, andKirsty found herself meeting him halfway._

 _Their lips touched only for a moment, but it left sparks on her skin._

 _"And I know you will, Kirsty."_

* * *

The pin gleamed up at her, twinkling through its rust, sturdy as it had been the day he gave it to her. Kirsty pulled it out and turned it in her fingers - this little reminder, something so small, that had saved her life.

* * *

 _The Cenobite had Channard's attention. He'd lured him in here - Kirsty watched in the shadows as the two glared at each other, and Channard let out a laugh._

 _"She ran away from you," he said, voice cruel in its amusement. "Did you think she was going to trust you? She's told me what happened with her family because of you. You're the shadow that haunts her nightmares, not some knight in shining armor."_

 _"I never claimed to be," he said, and snapped his fingers. Chains sunk into the doctor, and he cried out, blasting back that same light. Kirsty watched the Cenobitic markings melt away with each burst, shaking, grasping the pin in her trembling hand._

 _"That's better," the doctor growled, "one less nightmare to haunt my patient. Now the only one left is me!" Another chain flew forward - right into Elliot's throat._

 _"No!" Kirsty didn't think - she just flew forward and grabbed Channard's shoulder, slamming the pin into his neck. He cried out in agony and the same shocks sent her flying backwards. She watched him convulse, screaming in pain, and then the chains tore him apart._ _The pin fell to the floor beside Elliot, and she ran to him._

 _He was already dead._

* * *

"I love you," she whispered again, and kissed the pin before closing the casket and shoving her hands in her pockets. She found her phone again and dialed Joey.

"I have the pin," she said, voice steadier than expected, "I'll be back as soon as I can." Joey signed off first, and she hung up, heading to the stairs.

 _You saved my life,_ she thought, picturing the man in the hospital as she made for the exit, _now it's my turn to save yours._

* * *

 _It's probably going to be a few days before I update again, since I don't want to get burnt out on this story, but this scene was fresh in my head and I needed to get it down. There's a one-shot coming up right after this, yet_ ** _another_** _au, because I just can't get enough of them._

 _Be kind and stay spooky, everyone!_

 _\- Inky_


	14. Chapter 14

Her hands were shaking. Tiffany's hands would not stop shaking and she wanted to cry; she wanted to cry and run because the box was coming and she _knew_ she would feel compelled to solve it. Even if she never touched it, she would ache to even as the very thought made her want to flee to safety. It was a golden and glistening double-edged sword; since solving it she had been broken of her detachment that forced her hands to solve whatever was put in them, but only because they could not forget, could not _accept_ anything that wasn't the Lament Configuration. Now it was coming this way, as was Kirsty, and as Tiffany stood guard she prayed to whoever might have been listening that Kirsty would get there first.

She was hidden in plain sight; the door was visible from her post, but it was harder to see her standing there. She clung to her phone and waited for a sign - for anything - to signal Joey. She looked down at her phone.

[Kirsty's ahead] came the text with almost perfect timing, followed by [do not worry. You will make it.] She nodded, though her fear wasn't quieted. She needed to focus.

[Thank you] she responded, and turned her attention to the parking lot. She could see the door, lit by a singular yellow bulb, and unsettling darkness in all directions. She knew where Joey was and that just made it worse; she was closer to danger, closer to him. Where was Kirsty?

"Tiffany!" The sudden voice made her jump, and she spun around. She barely had time to process her relief - Terri was sweating and struggling to breathe as she ran up. "The box - she has the box. It was in the Boiler Room." Tiffany's eyes widened and Terri nodded. "Yeah, I know. And she broke my phone, too."

Tiffany was typing before she fully realized what she wanted to say - she managed to send [Terri's alive] and hit send before the phone buzzed in response. It was Joey.

[He's upstairs, hide!]

* * *

Now Joey understood why Kirsty had panicked. She had slipped into the museum, hidden behind one of the displays, in order to monitor the doors. She couldn't stop glancing around; The metal seemed cold and harsh and judgmental in its icy gleam, every edge tantalizing and beckoning her to touch it, to slice her fingers open. Perhaps that was what a Cenobite was - perhaps their presence made the pain seem beautiful, but it only worried her more.

She stayed crouched behind the information booth and watched the figure in the dark. He had emerged from below, and she could only see a general shape and faint gleaming specks about him, like some otherworldly halo as he moved. He'd been described to her, though, and she knew exactly who she was seeing.

If she squinted, she could see bits of the Captain's face in that ghostly, impossible face.

Joey squeezed her phone a little tighter. They were both silent - did he know she was there? - and he was just walking, almost gliding through the exhibits, hands folded behind his back and posture soldier-stiff. She'd have assumed he was admiring the works if she didn't know better. He was waiting.

It wasn't wholly rational, but she hated him. Not a fiery hatred, perhaps, but a reactionary one - she looked at him and thought _you are a problem, you have put my sisters in danger, you are the reason we're here right now._ She clenched and unclenched a fist, forced her jaw to relax; anger would only cloud her focus right now. She needed to signal Kirsty if the other showed up first, or if he caught on.

Her phone buzzed. Joey silenced it, but when she looked up his head had turned. He started walking - with purpose this time - and she tensed as he came closer to her hiding place even as she ducked behind it. Joey held in a breath.

He stepped past her. She barely exhaled. _Safe for now._

"Not so fast," came a deep voice that echoed through the building, and Joey looked up just enough for black eyes to meet hers. He was glancing over his shoulder, standing by the door with one hand flat against the wood. "The night is young yet." That smile was so hollow it sent chills up her spine. His eyes were _empty,_ like an abyss. "There are such sights to be seen."

Joey watched, frozen, as he pushed the door open and strolled out. It started to close behind him, but in the distance she saw a figure approach - a woman holding a wooden box.

* * *

Kirsty gripped the coffin in both hands as she walked forward. She had parked about a block away and walked - it would have been too easy to just keep driving, to try and put off what she had to do. Her coat pocket was heavy and the contents clanked against each other, occasionally hitting her hip with her steps. She was too aware of everything, too sensitive to the dark, the glare of the light, the hair on her skin standing on end, the deafening silence interrupted only by her shoes going _click click click._

He was standing there at the museum door - the yellow light fell down on him in a circle and it looked ugly in a way she couldn't explain. Perhaps it was her nerves, or knowing the truth, or what he'd said to her; perhaps it was knowing how close her sisters were to danger, but he looked _wrong_ in that glaring fluorescent light. It fell on his leather and turned it an off-black that seemed almost sickly-green; the shadows on his pins seemed all wrong. She walked forward, _click click click,_ and her stomach churned as she got closer.

He just stood there, waiting, that same wrong smile on his face.

"Kirsty." Somehow his voice was uncorrupted, unaltered, though its echo was slightly lost in the open night air. He spoke her name like a lover. "Welcome back." He extended his hands to her; at an arm's length away she brought up her own, still gripping the box. His hands settled over hers, fingertips brushing the backs of her knuckles.

"I brought the pin back," she said, voice too quiet. "Just like I promised."

"I knew you would," he said with that same gentility, and even if his eyes were empty his expression was one of faint, soft fondness. "Though I must admit I was hoping you would return either way." He pulled her right hand over the lid of the coffin, his thumb idly circling her skin. She felt the faintest buzz of her phone in her pocket, rubbing against everything else inside and making a metallic hum. "Have you considered my offer?" She felt the lump in her throat again.

"I..." She looked down. "I can't."

"You can." His hand was on her cheek now, and he tilted her jaw up so she'd face him again. "Let me repay you, Kirsty. Come back to me." Another buzz. His hollow gaze was almost comforting, devoid of trouble or fear. "Kirsty." She swallowed. "Come back to the realm of Leviathan, and I will make you my queen."

"Kirsty!" She was pulled from his words by Terri's voice, but already a hand was on her shoulder and another yanked the box from their hands.

"Angelique!" The low growl in his voice that all but promised a painful death would have terrified her if she wasn't frightened by the eyes of this woman. His were empty; hers were filled with all the agony of Hell itself.

"A Queen, hm?" The woman with lips like blood smiled. "You disappoint me, Prince. How can you offer Leviathan's power when you do not even have it?"

And Kirsty watched, frozen, as the coffin cracked and splintered before coming apart in a single moment of the Princess of the Labyrinth crushing it whole in her hand.

* * *

 _I. lost this chapter's progress. TWICE. But it's finally up, and Chapter 15 will be here sooner rather than later! Thank you all for your patience!_

 _-Inky_


	15. Chapter 15

Everything was still.

For several seconds the world was still and it was suffocating Kirsty, the way the hand gripping her neck with fingernails pressing against her skin threatened to suffocate her. Her eyes moved from the woman who was apparently named Angelique to the Prince, who glared at her with murder in his eyes. A nail pushed inward and Kirsty winced.

"Let her go." Gone was the gentle voice of a moment before; gone was the softness he seemed to reserve for Kirsty alone. The being before her was ready to tear this Cenobite asunder.

"I am not Cenobite, whelp," the woman murmured with a coolness like she was remarking on the weather. _She_ was in Kirsty's head now, and so Kirsty fixated her attention on the two of them, forgetting everything else. "I will admit, Cenobite, though you have poor taste in potential consorts, you do choose such _pretty_ toys. Cooperate with me as we planned and I might let you keep her. Perhaps even alive."

Kirsty swallowed, feeling a sting at the corners of her eyes. He did not look at her.

"Well?" Another nail dug into her skin. "Speak, Son of Leviathan."

"Do not address me as some _mongrel,"_ he snarled, "You have the box. If you believe the portal will open, then open it." She laughed, a sound that sent ice down Kirsty's spine, and squeezed a little tighter. Kirsty drew in a shallow breath.

"You think I've forgotten the rules of my own domain?" She held the box up. "I would not approach the gates of the Labyrinth with empty arms." She looked away, into the darkness, and cold understanding seized Kirsty. "I know you girls are out there."

"No," Kirsty started, but her neck was squeezed again. She saw the Prince start to move, but the first nail drew a drop of red and he froze.

"Yes." She could see Tiffany and Terri in the shadows, stepping out. "Do you want her to live?" Tiffany nodded. "Go inside, straight to the basement, and wait for me there." They looked at each other, and Kirsty started to shake her head and mouth _no._ Angelique squeezed again with a jab of her little nail and Kirsty couldn't hold back the strained yelp of pain. "Now."

Tiffany urged Terri forward and started after her; Kirsty watched them and mouthed _I'm sorry_ when Tiffany looked at her. Tiffany signed one word before disappearing behind the door.

"What did she say?" Angelique asked.

"It looked like a wave," Kirsty said, voice faint. "Please don't hurt them..."

"Oh, I won't lay a finger on them," Angelique said, "that is for the Labyrinth to enjoy." She looked back to the Prince. "Now, Cenobite, I'm feeling generous. Cooperate with me, and I'll spare the two of you for the time being. You can come home as you intended and help me bring in a new era of the Labyrinth, one expanding beyond the doors and into this realm of uncultured flesh. Defy me," Kirsty felt her face going cold, and she gulped at the air once and tried to swallow as much as she could, "and I'll snap her pretty little neck, then bring you home as an example of what happens to those who stand in my way." She smiled, though Kirsty couldn't quite see it. "Your choice."

She was lightheaded; she couldn't see his face for how her eyes clouded over. Distantly, like a memory, she heard his voice.

"... Very well, Angelique. Spare her."

"Good boy." Her neck was released and Kirsty fell to her knees, gasping for air. She collapsed onto her side, feeling a jab in her side from her coat pocket but ignoring it because she needed air, she needed to breathe. She looked up enough to see the two Labyrinth dwellers stare at each other with a cold gaze, even as Angelique reached up to stroke his jaw.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" Kirsty looked at the ground; the concrete was littered with splinters and dented metal. None of them were sharp enough to cut skin, or she might have tried to get this woman's ankle. She fumbled for her pocket, but her body resisted, still drained from lack of oxygen. She looked back up at the Prince.

"Give me the box, Angelique," he said, and she hummed.

"Not yet. First the basement." She gestured to the door. "Remember, she's still right here." Kirsty felt a heel nudge her neck, and she fought back a whimper as it dug into the bruise forming on her skin. She saw the shifting of black leather as her gaze fell, the sight of him starting to kneel. "Leave her. You can tend to your little girlfriend after the door is opened." A moment's pause, and he rose again, before turning to the door. He stood before it for several seconds, and Kirsty could vaguely see a look of intense concentration on his face.

He closed his eyes.

"Well? Open the door." Angelique stepped away from her and closer to him. "Don't keep me waiting." Another moment's long, unbearable pause.

"Yes, Angelique."

He opened the doors and Kirsty saw metal fly; chains and hooks shot forward, digging into Angelique's skin and dress and face. She screamed, but to Kirsty's horror it was in rage; she watched as Angelique gripped the chains and ripped them from her, tearing away flesh and leaving latch red splotches across her that dripped to the floor in slick crimson. Angelique laughed and dropped the chains, and Kirsty propped herself up in time to see the Prince take a step back.

"Cute!" Her voice was something else now, the woman's melting with a monster's into something horrible and loud, "But I have had _enough_ inconveniences!" Sharp claws on an oversized hand reached forward, and she swung.

The Prince was sent backwards across the concrete, collapsing in the middle of the parking lot.

"My patience has run out," she snarled, "I will return for the two of you when I am Queen." Angelique stepped through the doors and into the darkness, and only when she was out of sight did Kirsty scramble to her feet and run to the Prince.

He was lying on his back, by the time Kirsty made it he was already sitting up, trying to get to his feet. Kirsty's hands shook as she helped him up, eyes taking in scratch marks across his leather robes, long and red and angry.

"They will heal," he muttered, looking frustrated. "but I am weaker than I expected."

"I'm sorry," Kirsty whispered, looking at them and at him. She squeezed her right hand in a fist as the other reached up to touch his jaw. "I didn't mean for this to happen, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Do not apologize for her," he said, his eyes on her again. "You could not have known that would happen." Kirsty swallowed as he looked down at her with those empty eyes, that forgiving expression. "I will let her tear me apart before she touches you again."

"I know," she whispered, and pulled him a bit closer. He acquiesced, leaning towards her face. "Just like you did before. That's why I'm sorry." She saw a flicker of confusion, of questioning.

"Sorry for what, Kirsty?" She leaned in and kissed him; she felt him relax the slightest bit against her, start to return it, when she spoke again.

"For this."

And her right hand joined the other one to his face, the pin slipping between her fingers and into his forehead. He seized up in her arms and she cupped his neck to kiss him again as he convulsed, feeling electricity course from him and into her, not letting go even as she felt she might burst.

 _I'm sorry,_ she thought, willing her words into his mind, _I'm sorry._ _Please come back to me._ The shocks were growing unbearable. She held onto him. _I love you._

Another shock and she was forced to let go, staggering back, legs shaking as she watched. He stood trembling, back arched to much, head craned up, face twisted in a grip of unfathomable agony. His eyes opened and she saw them flash white, then blue, then black.

He stood there, stone-still, until he drew in a breath; and then his body shifted as if falling into place, posture soldier-stiff, head held aloft. He looked at her, and Kirsty could have wept with relief as his eyes - his emotive, curious eyes - took her in.

"...Kirsty," he said carefully, that controlled voice she remembered. "What did Tiffany sign to you?" Somehow, Kirsty smiled as she copied the move; a left-to-right sweep with both hands, arcing up and down as she did.

"It means plan," Kirsty said, "She has a plan."

* * *

 _I swear to high heaven I'm not just following whatever gets suggested, I've had this moment planned for_ _ **months.**_ _Ah well, great minds think alike. Onward!_

 _-Inky_


	16. Chapter 16

The world swam in fog and lightning.

Coming together was a maelstrom; memories and thoughts merged violently, struggling for a place in time before being crushed together in his head. Wants and fears crashed together and like broken glass slotted into each other, a mosaic of confused thoughts, of two beings who were apart just slightly too long. He wanted to go home, he wanted to be free; he wanted control and to relinquish it, for the commands of his gods and to escape, to taste so much, to be numb.

What must have been a few seconds around him stretched and contorted into an eternity; Elliot and the Prince fought within his mind, struggling even as they came together once more.

Throughout it all he was in agony; Leviathan's grasp reclaimed him in blue, and he was paralyzed as his internal chains tightened and discipline reclaimed his mind. He was Unbound, he was Elliot, he was blinded white-hot by the pain of becoming himself. The two voices within him shouted, fury and righteousness, incoherent in their volume. They were so unbearably loud.

They were so loud

They were so

They were

 _I am._

The lightning receded. His mind was still swimming; _he_ was still grasping internally, grappling for reality, trying to right himself. He drew in a breath, and somehow his lungs felt deeper, or perhaps the part of him that had truly needed breath hadn't tasted air. He blinked, looked, found a shape in the dark. A human. A woman. Brown eyes and curly hair.

 _Kirsty._

It came flooding back to him, two concurrent memories side by side. She must have hidden it -

No, not must have. She'd _told_ him.

* * *

"Elliot, can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear, Miss Summerskill." He saw Kirsty roll her eyes a little and chuckled. Thank mercy Kirsty had turned the radio down in her car, and they were far away enough that Angelique would not interfere.

"Alright, good. So I kind of have a plan, and I want to apologize in advance."

"Apologize? Why?"

"It kind of involves lying to you. Him. I mean technically it's both by the end, but you're one person... I think."

"You understand as well as I do." Elliot had tried his best to understand what might happen, but even he had to admit to himself he was unsure. Would they merge back so easily? He couldn't express that, though; they all had enough worries to contend with.

He'd figure it out, as Elliot or as his true self. Somehow.

"So this," she said, holding the casket up while her other hand was on the wheel, "is where I've been keeping the pin hidden for years. Nobody knows about it - everyone thinks it's just something I keep on my desk for my father. And it is, but my point is that to me, it's also an important secret. I'm going to give it to him - you - the other half of you when I get there."

"I'm not sure I see where the lie comes in," he said, puzzled. "That is what he asked you to do."

"No," she said, putting it back down, "he asked me to bring him the _pin._ And I will, while thinking about how I've been hiding it in the casket."

"... but by the time it reaches him..."

"Exactly." Kirsty smiled a little. "You said that if he puts it in by himself, there's a chance he could keep you out. So while he's opening the box, my idea is that you can stay focused on manifesting inside the pin. Put all your power into that, and as soon as he looks down..."

"Quite clever," he said with a note of approval, "but yes, I can see how that might feel deceptive."

"I hope you can forgive me," she said, voice soft. He understood, somehow, that it wasn't him specifically she meant.

"We will have to see," he said, before feeling a shift in the energy. "We're close."

"I know." She pulled into a small lot. "We'll walk from here. Don't try to signal anyone from here onward." She parked, and took a breath. "Just hold onto the pin no matter what, okay?"

"As you command, Kirsty." She smiled again as she turned the car off, and Elliot did as asked, slotting into the energy surrounding the pin and holding on as if it was his body. It felt, somehow, like home.

* * *

Now here she was. Dazed, he'd asked her the first coherent thing he could think of - perhaps he should take to learning sign language - before his thoughts started to slowly but surely come back to him, before he started coming back to himself.

Elliot and the Unbound Prince grew quieter in his head, their voices slowly becoming one. _His._

Slightly unsure but unwilling to show it, he held a hand forward. Kirsty - brilliant and frustrating Kirsty, he'd have never caught the trick - stepped closer, and slowly, almost tenderly, put her fingers on his.

"I suppose," he said, and her brow furrowed a little, "I can forgive you, just this once." He felt her laughter in her touch before it reached her voice, but laugh she did, a short sound of relief and almost of joy.

"You're back," she said, smiling at him, "thank goodness, you're back."

"Almost," he said, and again she looked at him quizzically. "The two parts of me are still... refitting themselves. I am afraid I cannot simply pick up where I left off, and we are short on time."

"I know," Kirsty said. She let go of his hand to push her hair back from her face. "I don't know what Tiffany's plan is, but I trust her to come up with something to at least hold Angelique off."

"That is not truly her name," he said, partially because it was a coherent thought and he was still struggling with them in his mind. "She follows the same rules that I do - I do not know her true name, only that Angelique is what she was given when she was dragged to this realm and sealed within human flesh."

"Then why call her that?" She frowned, and he couldn't help the cruel little smirk that crept across his lip. Perhaps his discipline was not entirely in place just yet.

"To remind ourselves, and her, that she is fallen." Oh, he would savor the look of shock on Kirsty's face forever if he remembered it. His expression turned grim quickly. "But she is powerful yet. We will need to be careful."

"So what can we do?" He finally felt steady enough to move, and started towards the door. Kirsty followed after him; he offered his arm, and to his immense satisfaction, she took it.

"I am afraid that to stop her, we will need to go with her idea." The doors swung open for him, and he saw Joey, who stared at them both with disbelief. Kirsty nodded to her, and she raised both hands in confusion before following the two of them and shaking her head. "We will need to open the door."

* * *

 _Holy smokes ya'll I can see the finish line. We're so close. I don't know what I'm gonna do when I'm done._

 _Okay, I kind of know, but still. Thank you all for reading this long, and I hope you enjoy!_

 _-Inky_


	17. Chapter 17

"Okay, so Terri and Tiffany are stalling her right now." Joey was looking at her phone, mostly so she didn't have to make eye contact with the other two. "I don't know how long they can keep that up, but Tiffany said she has an endgame in mind. I can't imagine what it could possibly be."

"I think I have an idea," Kirsty said, and Joey looked up at her. Her sister was standing next to the Cenobite that technically was Elliot but also not, maybe, and their hands were loosely intertwined at their sides as they looked down the stairs. It was a decent way down, but everyone was still speaking quietly. Kirsty squeezed his hand, and he nodded.

"It's entirely possible," he said, before looking at Joey. She tried to control her frown, reminding herself that he was helping them, but that was hard to do when he'd offered her a thinly-veiled threat less than half an hour ago. She thought it was a threat, at least. The alternative that he'd intended it as a _good_ thing was somehow worse. "Miss Summerskill?"

"Joey," she said automatically, snapping out of her half-cloud of thought to see him looking at her quizzically. He could read minds, couldn't he? "Just... Joey, please." She looked back at her phone. "She's getting impatient... what do we do, then? Tiffany stalls, we get down there, and... what?"

"Somebody needs to open the box," Kirsty said, "and she won't do it, because the Labyrinth will rip her apart. And if it's one of us, _we'll_ get torn apart, and I don't know if I can bargain my way out of that a second time."

"It is a matter of making sure she does not decide who will open it." She did not look back up at him, but did glance at Kirsty, who looked deep in thought. "If we can get her restrained, it should buy us some time to make a decision. The trouble is that I do not know if I have the strength to do so."

"Maybe we can trick her into opening it anyway?" Kirsty didn't sound confident even as she suggested it. "If it's one of us..."

A horrible sound overtook the museum, more piercing than nails on glass. Joey and Kirsty both covered their ears in a grimace, and when Joey looked up, the Cenobite's expression had gone from stern to grim.

"We are out of time," he said, "she is not waiting anymore." He started for the stairs, descending into the shadows. Joey looked at Kirsty.

"Are you sure about him?" She asked, glancing towards him for a moment, and Kirsty nodded.

"I know it sounds strange, but I am." Joey nodded, but still frowned.

"If he hurts you or Tiffany..."

"I know." She smiled. "Nobody messes with your sisters if they want to live."

"Kirsty, Joey, we do not have time." He was already halfway down, and both followed. Joey took her sister's hand and squeezed it as they followed, the blue tints of the basement urging them into the dark.

* * *

Terri and Tiffany looked at each other. Terri was gripping the box - she had been trying, at Tiffany's suggestion, to open it the wrong way for several minutes. She had succeeded, and now it was contorted into something unrecognizable - still black and gold, but looking less like a box and more an assemblage of shapes.

Tiffany had hoped - because she didn't have any better ideas - that one of the arrangements would turn it into the Leviathan Configuration again. This was not it, however, and now Angelique stared at them with hatred in her eyes, blood staining her dress and pieces of her skin trailing at her waist like some horrid skirt-train dripping to the floor. Tiffany couldn't quite see all of her in the dark, but she was grateful for that - what she could see was horrifying, and if she had ever been a human woman, she certainly wasn't anymore.

"Fix it," she growled, "And open it _properly."_

"I am, I am!" Terri looked at Tiffany again with distress in her eyes, and Tiffany mouthed _keep going_ at her, giving a small and urging gesture with her hands. Terri grimaced, but turned back to the box and started pushing things back into place.

"Now," Angelique said, stepping forward, "I think you've done enough with that." She plucked the box from Terri's hands, and Tiffany's heart dropped into her stomach. "You, girl," she said, and Tiffany shook her head. "Do not defy me. Come here."

Tiffany stared at the box. Her hands were shaking, and Angelique was advancing on her. She shook her head again and took a step back.

"I have had enough inconvenience today," Angelique snarled. Her hand fell on the wall of an incomplete structure, and that did not look like a human hand. "I said come _here."_ Tiffany stumbled back, looking around, ready to grab something to throw or even just to hit her with. Angelique's fingers sank into the metal. "Do not make me ask agai-AUGH!"

Terri's arms had her in a chokehold. Tiffany watched as they struggled - Terri's feet off the ground and Angelique flailing - and the Lament Configuration went tumbling off to the side. Angelique shouted out in pain and Tiffany could see _something_ driven into the exposed muscle of her shoulder.

"That's for breaking down the wall, you bitch!" Terri shouted, driving it in deeper. Angelique gave a guttural growl before flinging Terri off with a yank of her arm, and the metal she gripped ripped away and gave a horrible and overwhelming shriek.

"Enough!" The metal hit the ground, and Tiffany ran to Terri's side. Terri looked up at her - she had landed on her side - and offered a weak nod.

"It was worth trying," she said, rolling onto her back. She winced and grabbed her shoulder. Tiffany was about to reach for it when she felt a drop of warmth on her cheek, and looked up to see something black and gold before her eyes.

 _"You_ will open it," Angelique said in a whisper, and Tiffany could only watch as she felt her hands reach up and take the Lament Configuration within them.


	18. Chapter 18

He may have been the first down the stairs, but it was Kirsty who stood in front of him now, trying to peer in without being seen. She felt Joey's hand on her shoulder, and was vaguely aware of words being whispered between them, but she wasn't listening, too concerned for the two who had disappeared with Angelique. That horrible sound - what had she _done_ to them?

There were words being spoken. It was the woman's voice - but she did not sound like a woman. Instead her voice had the same ethereal quality as the Prince's did, that same echo, but it was too far to the other end. Kirsty had felt disgust the first time she'd experienced his dimension, but in the face of this she was repulsed. Her hands flew to her ears, she found it too awful to bear, and she tried desperately to find anything in the dark.

It was Terri she spotted first - lying on the ground, the basement too dark to see her face properly. A lump formed in her throat. She tugged on Joey's sleeve.

"Oh, no," Joey whispered, and Kirsty nodded. Another shape finally became clear, sitting next to Terri. Kirsty swallowed - she knew that long blonde hair anywhere, even in the blues and blacks of the shadows in what felt less like a basement and more like an underworld.

"Look," the Prince said, "in her hands." She looked back at Tiffany and squinted. At first she couldn't see anything, and briefly wondered how he could in such pitch darkness. She leaned in a little closer, and as Tiffany's hands turned she saw a faint and all too familiar twinkle of darkened gold. The horrid prayer concluded, and the box crackled blue.

Kirsty started to sprint forward, but two hands caught her arms and pulled her back. She looked first at the Prince, before realizing he only had one hand on her; she turned to Joey and saw her holding the other. They looked to each other and exchanged a brief and terse nod.

"What are you doing?" She said, keeping her voice down even as panic threatened to swallow her. "Tiffany's in danger!"

"As you will be if we expose ourselves without strategy." The Prince was keeping his voice down as well, and sounded strange without his usual reverberations. He looked back at Tiffany, then her surroundings. "That prayer she was speaking, and these structures... they could possibly form a larger and more permanent Lament Configuration." Electricity sparked from Tiffany's hands outward, and Kirsty saw familiar patterns suddenly light up on the walls. They flickered like lighting before disappearing again. "Without somebody to maintain it, however..."

"...However?" Joey did not sound confident, and Kirsty looked up at the Prince with concern.

"There is no promise it will remain stable. She could cause a collapse." His expression turned grim. "I do not know what could happen to either of our worlds, and I do not wish to."

"So what do we do?" Kirsty looked back to Tiffany, feeling tears sting at the corners of her eyes. Before anyone could answer, though, something truly terrible cut through the silence - a voice that was not a woman's, not a man's, too terrible to be of anything on this Earth.

"Cenobite," it snarled so deep that Kirsty felt the word twist into her core, "I know you are here. Reveal yourself." Kirsty and Joey looked to the Prince, and he looked back at them.

"Be careful," he said, "and no tears, please. We will find a way." He turned away.

But Kirsty did let the tears fall as she felt Joey squeeze her hand, and they watched him step into the shadows, where Angelique's hellish grasp waited for him.

* * *

"You are foolish," the Princess snarled as she watched the Cenobite step into view, "to try and come back to me now." She could see the scratches in his leather, the slight lean in his gait, and it did bring the smallest touch of satisfaction to know that she had hurt him. He stood tall and stern, hands clasped behind his back, head held too high for one who should have been festering in defeat. "Perhaps those nails have dug into your brain." She laughed at that, though he did not respond. Something was wrong with his eyes, but she could not have cared less about that. "It is too late to stop my return," she continued, "or to have any chance of ruling by my side. It's a shame, really, you would have made such a fun toy."

Around them the room shifted - the mechanisms responding to their heart, their origin, feeling it move and changing in turn. She heard the click of metal sliding into metal and grinned, watching as the designs around them shifted in turn. The room contorted with the box, pieces slotting in and out of each other, slow and overwhelming in their movement. She observed them a moment longer before turning to the Cenobite, the witness to her reclamation of the Labyrinth's throne.

He did not respond, or react, or even change his expression. She snarled again.

"Well? Say something, Cenobite!"

"You are making a mistake," he said, "if you try to open the gates now, do you think they will stay open?" He took a step forward, and she readied her claw - oh, how she'd ached to tear something apart for the sheer enjoyment of it, how she'd _missed_ the feeling of flesh coming apart from flesh. "Were you not going to use Merchant, Angelique? How can you take control of a world that has already been ruined?"

"That is _not_ my name! If the door tears this world apart, so be it! I will build my empire on its ruins!" Two of the walls fell and the ground beneath them shook; her grin stretched across her face, and the Prince's expression changed oh-so-slightly in response. "Oh, poor Cenobite Prince," she cooed, "have you never seen a true creation of the Labyrinth?" She stepped forward, and he didn't move despite the look in his eye. She felt him pull back ad she tilted his chin up with a claw. "So used to the watered-down, diluted forms of your Age... an age of weakness. The Labyrinth's children have fallen, replaced with mere echoes of what they once were. Even you are more human than a true creation of Leviathan."

"Stop this," he said, his gaze holding hers, "take the box and open it yourself. I have made my own mistakes - we shall both face our judgement before there is any chance of the Age having a proper ruler." beneath the structures the walls were tearing - the door was so close now she could almost hear the Labyrinth's song.

"Oh, you shall face judgement," she said, a laugh echoing in her open chest, "I shall see to it _personally."_

And as if to answer her wish the final click sounded, and the walls around them shifted in turn, rising above the ceiling, and began to change. She smiled.

"The door," she said, looking at the Prince who watched in stone silence, "is opening. It is time for the new Age to begin." She turned to face the girl, the summoner of her new era.

There were four girls kneeling on the floor.


	19. Chapter 19

She couldn't _stop._

The box was in her hands and she couldn't stop herself from solving it. She didn't want to, she wanted to throw it into the darkness and grab Terri's hand and run, run to her sisters and their warm, safe arms. Tiffany watched her hands, felt every impulse right before she fulfilled it - it was as if she was trapped on autopilot, unable to do anything but witness her own role in this monster's machinations. Tiffany closed her eyes as the room shook, what little she could control, and tried to will herself free, to think about what she _wanted_ to do.

She wanted to be home. She wanted to curl up in the big chair with her book and she wanted to tell her sisters about the last one she'd finished. She wanted to bring Terri and Elliot and they could all just have a nice mug of tea and be _safe_ and far, far away from here.

She wanted her mom.

Tiffany's yes burned as she imagined her mom, the woman she barely remembered, who had tried to save her from her hands and her detachment. Her mom, who had given her pencils and taught her to write when she found it so hard to speak, who had wanted her to have a say in her own life, who had tried to help her. Her mom, who had been killed by the man who put this _damned_ box in her hands. Tiffany could almost feel her hand running through her hair, saying her name...

Her eyes snapped open and she looked up at who was touching her, and the shock was _just_ enough.

"Kirsty." It was the smallest whisper, but it meant the world as Kirsty put her hands over her sister's own. Tiffany looked at her, then next to her. "Joey." Joey didn't touch the box even as Tiffany couldn't stop herself from solving it, and instead started signing.

"Tiffany," she started, "Kirsty thinks there's a chance you might be safe from the Cenobites. You were forced to open the box the first time, right?" Tiffany nodded, her thumb tracing that damned circle. She could feel tears stinging her cheeks, the sparks stinging her hands, but she couldn't _stop._ "You got out of that alive, with Kirsty." She nodded again but then shook her head, swallowing and trying _anything_ to reclaim control of her hands. Psychological detachment felt too clinical - this was a _curse,_ she was damning the world and powerless to stop herself. Around her the room was morphing into something she couldn't see but felt, felt that horrible _wrongness_ that the otherworld exuded. Why didn't they take the box from her?

Terri was trying to sit up, and Joey moved to help her.

"Tiffany," Kirsty said in a whisper, "we need the door open to stop Angelique." She finally stopped Tiffany's hand, but did not take the box away. It split, rising into two pieces she knew how to rotate. "And if we can't stop them from taking you, then we're coming with you together."

"Together," Joey agreed, helping Kirsty turn the mechanism. The world around them was cacophonous in its shifting, drowning out their words to anyone but them. Tiffany could vaguely hear the two Labyrinth-beings speaking, but in that moment her entire world was made of the two women kneeling in front of her, and then another hand was on the box. They all looked at Terri.

"Look," she said, "if we're all going to die, I'd rather do it here trying to stop the end of the world than whatever else was waiting for me out there. Even if I'm not part of this family."

"You are now," Kirsty said, and despite herself Tiffany smiled and nodded. Joey put an arm around Terri's shoulder. "Okay, we push it together on three. Ready?"

Tiffany nodded. So did everyone else.

"On my mark," Joey said, and Tiffany saw her swallow. Her voice was choked when she spoke again. "I love you, girls. One."

Lightning crackled at her fingertips.

"Two."

There was light seeping through the walls, and for a moment Tiffany thought the women before her looked like angels. She wondered if she did, too.

"Three!"

All four pushed down at once, and Tiffany let herself sob as the box clicked into place and the room's seams split apart.

* * *

 _No._

He had seen it happen - in the split second it took for them to press down he saw it, all four together. Around them he could see the cracks forming, cement splitting like dried skin and light bleeding through. He could feel his Gash approach.

The first chain burst into Terri's shoulder. Her scream cut through the mechanical groaning and straight to his soul. His own chains burst from the other side and sank into them and he felt it tear from her flesh and Terri sobbed in agony. He snapped his fingers and a chainmail net sank into the floor, a canopy to protect them for as long as he could.

 _More human than a creation of Leviathan._ It looked at Angelique and she lunged at him. Her claws found his belt and ripped. His tools fell to the floor and blood spilled from his navel onto his cassock. The pain was fresh and new to his body and he winced despite how he'd missed it. He did not have time to reflect on that - he grabbed a blade from the ground.

"Does it hurt?" Angelique laughed, and that was _not_ a laugh, and in the blinding light of Leviathan the Prince could see how her mouth split so _wrong_ across her face. "They opened the box, there's nothing you can do to save them now!" He snapped and two hooks caught the sides of that hideous grin and he willed them to pull. She struggled and yelled as they tore at her mouth.

"You are the one who forced them to open the box," he said, trying to maintain his calm even as chains ripped into the ground beneath him, "and it was your wish that the door would open." The ceiling was starting to crumble overhead and power beyond power sparked around them. _There is no chance this will hold,_ he thought. A hook shot past his net and he heard Joey cry out. _Left shoulder._ He snapped again. One of the hooks in Angelique receded and another struck the one on Joey. The chains surrounding them strained on his mind. Another of his Gash's grasped at them and bounced off, but the chain it hit pulled back into the darkness.

Angelique ripped the other hook from her jaw and tossed it to the ground. She lunged forward and he was knocked back onto the ground. A chain dug into her back.

He tried, desperately, to reach out to his Gash.

"Pathetic," she snarled. The chain pulled back but she sank her claws into the ground, her other hand digging into his chest. His open wounds burned against her claws and he winced - there was something _wrong_ about this pain, about everything about her. _They are innocent,_ he thought, _she is the one who called you._

More hooks claimed her and she was pulled off him. The Prince forced himself to stand and looked to the sisters - within the chains they held each other. To the end they chose each other.

Kirsty was looking up. He followed her eyes to the mechanisms on the walls, glittering like the Lament Configuration. They were still sparking and shifting, still waiting for the box's instructions, still under Angelique's spell.

 _Perhaps..._

"Kirsty!" He called back, "The shape of Leviathan!" Angelique ripped free and he brandished his blade. They collided and the knife found her flesh as her claws found his.

He prayed she'd understand.

* * *

"Leviathan?" Kirsty could barely keep up with what was happening - the light was leaking through the chains in rays and daggers and hid him in shadows and blinding white. She looked back to her sisters, and the box in their hands, shaking and sparking. If she didn't know better she'd have thought it was overwhelmed trying to open the door.

The floor beneath them split open in four lines, triangles of crumbling cement. They began to rise and groaned under their own weight, falling back to the ground.

 _The room's too big,_ she thought, looking up again. She squinted, and at _last_ she found some order in the light and the cracks in the walls. They stretched past the mechanisms and into each other, familiar patterns facing inward instead of out.

This room was not an extension of the Lament Configuration. It _was_ a Lament Configuration.

One of the chains protecting them flew back and clawed into her shoulder. Kirsty cried out and bit her lip, tears spilling down her cheeks with the red warmth down her back. It burned the way looking at the light burned. She could think of nothing else.

Her hands clenched. Fingers and cold metal. Her sisters. The box.

 _The box._

"Tiffany!" She wasn't sure how she managed to speak, but she looked up at her sister. Through the white-hot burning she could see Tiffany's eyes, and she squeezed the box. "We need to solve it again, quickly!" She looked from Joey to Terri, both holding their own wounds and fighting to stay close. "Hold on to me, both of you!"

Her hands started moving, as did Tiffany's, traversing the box for answers. The shape of Leviathan - the diamond he'd dropped in her hands. If it stopped her from opening the door then-

Joey reached out and turned a mechanism. The sparks danced white across their fingers. Below them the earth groaned again, struggling to lift, that same white light spilling out as the cavity grew larger.

Desperately Kirsty tried to remember, willing her hands to repeat what she'd seen only once before without hands. White and sharp, she thought, like a star, how did you turn something so dark into a source of light?

She could only just hear the struggle behind her as she followed the path the box laid out. Chains and blades clashed with metal, the wet sound of flesh being carved, all but drowned out by the room tearing itself apart. Growls and snarls and curses filtered through and she could barely hear the Prince over Angelique's monstrous sounds. She looked up at Tiffany, entrenched in concentration, and Kirsty flinched at a cry of pain. She looked over her shoulder.

He was pinned against the wall and a clawed hand was torn down his chest. She wanted to run to him - _please don't let him die again -_ but turned back to the box. Tiffany turned something, Kirsty pushed a piece, and they heard an unfamiliar click. Corners, it had been turning corners. She started pushing, rotating, and the box grew thinner, paler, the seams melting together. The open walls collapsed into themselves and the light pouring through them snuffed out, though the hole in the floor remained. The chains guarding them receded - but so did the ones coming for them.

"No!"

All four looked then, and Terri screamed. Kirsty would have as well, but what she saw in the figure before her was so terrible, so unnatural, that it silenced her.

She could not find the words to describe what Angelique looked like in that otherworldly light, pulsing and bleeding and terrible, but the image was one she knew would haunt her dreams. Hooks and chains hung from her with thin ropes of her human skin and the tatters of her dress, and she looked at them with monstrous eyes and a scowl too large for her face. When she spoke, Kirsty barely heard the words in the many voices that came from her.

"You insufferable girls!" She took a step forward, hellfire in her gaze. "I did not come this close to have my world torn from me by more insipid, worthless mortals!" She was coming closer as the chains and light receded around them, the door closing, and Kirsty saw the figure behind her.

The Prince was on his knees, head down, gripping his chest; his sleeves and tunic were torn, his cassock clinging to him in stripes and patches. He looked up; his eyes met Kirsty's, and then he looked at Angelique. One shaking hand lifted, palm open, reaching for the Princess. She did not look at him, instead concentrating on Kirsty, who felt all this creature's sickening energy focus on her.

"I was going to save you for later," she snarled, "but I should have broken your neck when I had chance!"

The beast lunged for them and Kirsty closed her eyes and blood splattered across her face. A terrible yell hit her and knocked the air from her lungs; when she opened her eyes she saw Angelique on the ground, clawing at the ground near Kirsty's legs as dozens upon dozens of chains sank into her back. They pulled her towards the gaping and glowing hole in the ground.

"Thank you," she heard, and looked up at the Prince again. His eyes were closed, and the one chain he controlled was shaking while the others held strong. "By Leviathan's mercy," he whispered, struggling to breath, "thank you."

Tiffany grabbed her shoulder, and Kirsty looked at her. She pointed towards the door, bleeding light from beneath, and Kirsty saw three familiar figures silhouetted in the dark. She squeezed the box, almost complete, a little tighter.

Angelique screamed. Kirsty closed her eyes and covered her ears; she was sure the others did the same, but it did little to drown out the sound of her agony and anger as she was dragged into the Labyrinth. Kirsty opened her eyes; Angelique was swallowed by the light and the earth, struggling and clawing at the ground, cursing and growling until Kirsty could hear no human voice, only guttural, visceral sounds. Her claws disappeared, and the world fell silent.

Her hands shook as she reached for the box again. Tiffany reached a hand out; they looked at each other, then at Joey and Terri, who were still holding onto them and watching in shock. Slowly their hands reached out as well, and each one turned a corner piece and watched the Leviathan Configuration become complete.

The four slabs of concrete fell to the ground with a crash that made all four cry out, and the last of the chains receded into the darkness. The door was closed. Slowly the world around them began to shift; the transformed room morphed, creaked, as it slowly undid itself. _They never leave a trace behind,_ Kirsty couldn't help but think, even as her heart and mind were racing to understand what had happened.

Terri spoke first.

"Is... is it over?" Tiffany gave a weak nod, and Joey hugged all three of them. Kirsty, somehow, found it in her to let out a small laugh.

"Yeah," she said, forcing herself onto her feet despite the pain in her back, "it's over." She looked at the Leviathan Configuration, then at the Prince. He'd managed to stand, and despite the dark she could see the quiet look of relief on his face. "One last thing to take care of, I think."

"Outside," he said, starting to walk forward. "I do not think staying here while this room rebuilds itself would be wise."

Kirsty nodded, and looked to her sisters. Tiffany and Joey were already up, holding each other tight; Terri had put an arm over their shoulders, a tired smile on her face. She looked at Kirsty and smiled, and Kirsty smiled back.

"I agree with him," Terri said, shoving her hands in her pockets and wincing, "let's get out of here. My back hurts like hell." Kirsty nodded, looking to her sisters, and all of them made their way for the stairs up, to where reality awaited them.


	20. Chapter 20

"It's almost dawn," Kirsty said as she stepped out into the parking lot. The first streams of sunlight slipped between buildings, tinting the darkness a soft and muted shade of purple. It felt like waking from a dream, as if reality had opened its arms to welcome them back. She turned to look the others - Terri and Joey were both trying to look at their wounds, and Tiffany had her arms around both and was crying in relief. Kirsty hadn't seen such a smile on her face in a long time.

All three took one look at Kirsty before pulling her into the fold, and she gratefully accepted. By some strange mix of luck and miracle, they were _alive._ Kirsty pulled away and found herself laughing when Joey kissed her forehead. Terri laughed and asked if she would get one, and sputtered when Joey gave her just that. Kirsty laughed again and stepped back to look at the museum, slowly building itself back up from the inside out.

One figure did not emerge from the shadows, instead lingering in the darkness of the museum entrance. Kirsty looked at her sisters one more time, and Terri laughing between them, then the Leviathan Configuration in her hands. She knew what came next, what was left to be taken care of before they could call this a victory.

That didn't mean it hurt any less.

The Prince was standing up straight despite the wounds across his body, and he looked at Kirsty with a serenity she envied. She held the diamond out to him, offering a small and sheepish smile.

"I don't actually know how to put it back," she said, and he actually smiled back at her as he took it. She watched his hands, scratched and bloodied, as he worked; slowly he coaxed the familiar black and gold out from the pale device, and she felt a pang of sadness seeing it. She looked back up at him and swallowed.

"I believe I have a guess, Kirsty," he said as he continued to solve the box, "but please speak your mind."

"Before you told me..." she paused, shaking her head, trying to suss out him from Elliot from the him that was incomplete. Perhaps she never fully would. "You... asked me to come with you, before I knew about... what happened to you. To stay by your side." He sighed and turned a mechanism, and the box sparked in his hands. He turned one more piece and it was the Lament Configuration again, as beautiful as the first time she'd seen it.

"I did." She was surprised when he did not meet her gaze, instead tracing his fingers over the engravings of the box. "I made you a promise, Kirsty, that I had no authority or ability to keep. Even if you had returned my pin without restoring my other half to me, I would not have been powerful enough to secure such a place for you on my own. Not in the way that I intended to." Now he finally looked up at her, and for the first time she saw what could have been shame in his eyes. "I apologize for putting you in that position."

"You're forgiven," she said, and tried to smile. 'Just this once." He hummed, not quite a laugh, and placed the box in her hands again. "Even if you could have..."

"You were not ready. I knew that then, but I believed I could help you." The Prince's hands folded behind his back once more, posture soldier-stiff. "I do seem to forget that you're quite capable of handling yourself in those matters." He looked up, and Kirsty looked back at the other three with him. "This world... it has not been a home to me long before I opened the box. I can understand, however, that it is still yours."

"Thank you," she murmured, looking back at him. The box was cold in her hands. She knew what she wanted to ask, but she was afraid to know. "...What happens to you now?"

"Now," he said, that calm mask on him once more, "I return to face the judgment of Leviathan, for my actions both unbound from him and as my human self. We are generally not supposed to leave the Limbo realm without permission." He looked back at Kirsty, unreadable as she was used to. "It may be that I will be made to atone before I can return to my duties and my Gash." Guilt jabbed Kirsty's chest.

"I'm sorry," she started to say, "if you hadn't given me the pin..."

He held a hand up.

"Do not apologize for what you could not have known," he said. Instead of returning to his proper position, however, he gently took one of her hands in his own. "I knew what I was doing, and I will accept responsibility for it, and I will pay my dues to Leviathan and the Labyrinth."

"And then?" she asked, and there was that small, almost invisible smile.

"I will see you again, Miss Summerskill." His lips on her hand were cold, and his pins scraped her fingertips, but she smiled none the less. He let go and took a step back, expression shifting back to serenity. "Farewell, Kirsty."

"Farewell," she said, and held up the box. The blue lightning reached toward him with outstretched arms, and in a flash of light he was gone. Kirsty looked at the box in her hands, turning it over, before sticking it into her purse.

"Hey!" She looked up to see Terri, who had a playful smile on her face. "You going to tell us what that was about?" She smiled despite the flips her stomach was doing, and the lingering worry she would try to put behind her.

"It's a long story," she said, walking over to them. "It is pretty early... how about I tell it over breakfast?"

"My treat!" Terri grinned. "That monster bitch broke my phone, but she did not get my wallet!" Joey laughed, and Tiffany made her way over to Kirsty. The two put their arms around each other, and Kirsty felt Tiffany's head on her shoulder.

"You okay?" Tiffany asked, signing out o-k with her free hand, and Kirsty nodded.

"Yeah," she said, "I think I'll be okay." She let Tiffany go, and watched her sisters make their way to Terri's car. "I'll meet you guys there, alright? Text me!"

"You got it!" Joey called, and Kirsty smiled before sticking her hands in her coat pockets. She started walking towards her own car, leaving the museum behind as the rising sun brought the city back to life.

* * *

 _We're done! Thanks to everyone who's followed along with this story - it's been an absolute blast to write, and I've got no doubt I'm going to be revisiting this world soon. Please let me know what you think, and as always, be kind and stay spooky._

 _That's a wrap!_


End file.
